frets closest to bridge - levelling

  • Thread starter Thread starter Yasoo
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Yasoo

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The high note frets on my axe aren't squashed down as much as the low notes ones (because I don't play up there as much). So I'm getting that situation where the fret buzz is increasing over time. What's the technique for fixing this? I was thinking I'd just file down some of the upper frets. I saw a fret leveler at stewmac.com. I don't see how that will work since I have bow in the neck. Could you please advise me on some techniques for this?
 
Sounds like

You may need a truss rod adjustment as well as a fret leveling. Perhaps Light could add more info. on this subject....
 
Re: Sounds like

gvarko said:
You may need a truss rod adjustment as well as a fret leveling. Perhaps Light could add more info. on this subject....
Click to expand...

I've messed with my truss rod and bridge a lot over the years.

That's how I figured out about the frets. I finally realized that in order to get the action I want, I need to drop the bridge to a certain point and adjust the truss rods (it's a 6 string bass) to a certain point to get the strings more parallel to the body. Just as I start getting it to where it feels sweet, it get the buzz for the higher notes. I can adjust the truss rod the put more bend, but then I don't like the feel. I can visually see the decrease in height of the lower register frets. It really looks like I can just file or sand the last few frets.
 
Re: Re: Sounds like

Yasoo said:
I've messed with my truss rod and bridge a lot over the years.

That's how I figured out about the frets. I finally realized that in order to get the action I want, I need to drop the bridge to a certain point and adjust the truss rods (it's a 6 string bass) to a certain point to get the strings more parallel to the body. Just as I start getting it to where it feels sweet, it get the buzz for the higher notes. I can adjust the truss rod the put more bend, but then I don't like the feel. I can visually see the decrease in height of the lower register frets. It really looks like I can just file or sand the last few frets.
Click to expand...


No, you can not just file the last few frets. Do NOT attempt to dress your own frets. WHEN you fuck it up (and you will) you will have to get it refreted, which will cost you at least twice as much as getting it done by a professional in the first place. You can not learn to dress frets in any way except by doing it, and no amount of being careful is going to help you get it right. We have a person in our shop who has been with us for ten years. She is a great repair person, and does excellent fret jobs. None the less, she still does not feel comfortable doing it. It is (for her, after ten years) still one of the hardest things she does for us. Our shop manager, who has been with us for twenty-five years, feels comfortable dressing frets. He is also very fast, and very good. Myself, I have done a few hundred fret dresses, and I am only just getti9ng to the point where I can get it right every time. Don't try to do this yourself.

The process, for those who want to know, is to first use the truss rod to get the neck as straight as possible. Next, we level the frets with a very straight file. Then we recrown the frets (make the tops round again, and the various half and quarter round files being marketed right now do a crap job of this. You have to do it by hand). After recrowning, we bevel and round over all of the fret ends. Then we polish the frets with silicon carbide sandpaper (used dry), using 220, 320, 400, 600, 1000, and 1200 grits. Steel wool and citrus oil finish the job. Now, I just described that in just a few sentences, but it takes a highly skilled craftsman almost two hours, start to finish, of intense physical and mental labor to do the job. Pay to get it done right, and you will never be unhappy. Do it yourself, and it will cost you more, you will be without your guitar for longer, and you will (very possibly) wind up damaging your guitar in ways which are either impossible or expensive to repair. Don't try to dress your own frets. We know how to do it. You don't.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Whilst we are still on the subject of filing and to back up what Light has just said, filing is a skill, many years ago when I was a spotty apprentice, and it was a long time ago, I am 60 this year, my foreman, who I thought was a sadistic prick made me file a small 1 inch block out of cast iron, it had to be perfectly square and no more clearance anywhere more than 0.002". I swore about him but I learned to file, it is a precision skill that has to be learned, or I promise, you will fuck it up.
Incidently I still have the block.
Clive
 
Clive Hugh said:
Whilst we are still on the subject of filing and to back up what Light has just said, filing is a skill, many years ago when I was a spotty apprentice, and it was a long time ago, I am 60 this year, my foreman, who I thought was a sadistic prick made me file a small 1 inch block out of cast iron, it had to be perfectly square and no more clearance anywhere more than 0.002". I swore about him but I learned to file, it is a precision skill that has to be learned, or I promise, you will fuck it up.
Incidently I still have the block.
Clive
Click to expand...


I love stories like that. Like the Japanese apprentice woodworkers who were never allowed to do anything but carry shit and sharpen their chisels. For eight hours a day, for two YEARS. By the end of that time, they could put a shaving edge on a chisel by hand, in less time than it takes me with my Tormek wet wheel. Don't ever lose that block, man. That is too cool.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Bugger, I pressed the wrong key, as I was going to say, I just went out to the shed and ratted about in my old toolbox - and found it. slightly rusty but still ok.
Thanks light.
Clive
 
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