As the title indicates, I did some fret work for the first time, and I am not good at it...yet. But, we do things to learn. Practice makes perfect.
I had bought a small collection of various fret working files from Stew Mac. I bought their double sided files as well as the dual grit diamond files that are angled.
As with all fret work, I removed the strings and straightened the fretboard as best I could using a Stew Mac notched straight edge. It is a very expensive straight edge but it is really worth the money. It gets a lot of use and it takes the frets out of the neck, which for leveling frets is ideal!
The neck I was setting has a bit of a twist to it. but I did the best I could with it.
For leveling the frets, I initially used a flat leveling file. It took a lot less material off in a pass than I expected, but due to a lot of heavy wear on the first position frets, I had a lot of material to remove.
I ended up following the string path which ends up giving you a more conical (compound) radius to the fret board instead of cylindrical.
Then I tried using the traditional double sided crowning files to recrown the frets. I was not confident in my work enough to try using triangle files for this task.
Their operation is simple enough. Push the file over the frets until it is crowned. At least that is how it reads online. What I found is that it doesn't necessarily crown the fret evenly. So I ended up with uneven crowns on the frets.
The markings on the frets also became increasingly difficult to see as I continued to work. I am not sure if it is the lighting in my shop area (which is currently being upgraded). This did not assist me in making a nice even crown.
I found that lubricating the file with pro-cut or paraffin wax greatly assisted the filing action. However, the wax and pro-cut can hold the loose chips and powder from the frets. I read about some people using chalk to prevent their files from clogging. However, this does little in the way of lubricating the file which helps keep the file sharp and last longer. This is important as these files are NOT cheap when you consider a standard hardware file.
One thing I want to make a special point out of is that you should ALWAYS push with your file. Push it to cut and then lift it completely off of the material you are filing and then start again pushing. Don't drag it in reverse over the frets. This can (not saying it definitely will - but they are not cheap files - why risk it?) damage the teeth on the file.
Polishing the frets was much easier. I used 0000 steel wool and just rubbed them until they were shiny. It was the only step that went exactly as planned. The double sided fret crowning files took off very little material per pass and consequently didn't leave very deep gouges in the frets. Therefore polishing them (or dressing them) was much easier and able to be done with the 0000 steel wool by itself instead of a many step process of polishing with progressively finer grit papers.
I'm sure I could have made the frets shine a bit more had I done more than the 0000 steel wool, but at the end of the process, the frets were in just as bad condition as when I had started except that they no longer had big dips in the frets where the strings rested on them.
After I was finished with my first fret job I was well aware of what separates an amateur butcher job versus a professional job. I also realized how important practice and experience are with this sort of thing.
I was not going to be discouraged from learning. I ended up going back to Stew Mac (yes I am a Stew Mac fan boy) and buying their dual grit diamond files as well as the appropriate radiused wooden sanding block for the neck I was working on.
I want to clarify a little bit about why I am a Stew Mac fan real quick. Firstly, they have a wonderful and complete collection of guitars specific items at reasonable prices or at the very least competitive with other sites selling similar products. Additionally, they have extremely prompt shipping! Very few companies will beat them in this regard. And lastly, very few of their products that I have bought have disappointed me. Most of them are very much exactly as described and the high quantity and quality of their user reviews makes an educated purchase much easier. Their site also features a lot of great free information with plenty of pictures to illustrate them. I have no association with them and nothing to gain by talking Stew Mac up. They aren't the only site I deal with, but they are usually the first place I go for guitar specific tools.
With the new files I and radiused sanding block I decided to have another go at some fret work.
The radiused sanding blocks can be used instead of a file to maintain the clylindrical shape of the frets and fretboard when working on a fixed radius fretboard. The easiest way to use them is with self-adhesive sandpaper. Having used 3m paper for various woodworking needs, I am quite fond of it. However it is not cheap. While a few different grits would probably have been convenient, being on a budget left me buying just 320 grit. I figured it is fine enough that it won't leave deep gouges in the frets and will take them down slowly.
When actually working with the 3m paper, I really don't press down on the block more than just applying light even pressure so that all of the frets have an equal amount of material removed at the same time. Like using a file, you want to go the entire length of the fretboard in one pass and then start again. Starting at the last fret and working up toward the nut will result in slightly more material being removed from the rest of the fretboard than the first position as the sanding block stops at the nut and doesn't pass the entire length of the sanding material over the fret. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since the first position is going to see a lot of play and having the frets higher than the following frets will ensure little to no buzz.
I noticed I was able to do a much more even job of leveling the frets with the sanding block. Some frets definitely had flatter plateaus on them, but it was very even from side to side on the fret. How well the frets were initially installed on the guitar is also a factor in how even the leveling will be across the fret as well. Anybody who has owned a very cheap import guitar will know exactly what I am talking about. Usually one end of the fret is sticking up. This can lead to the frets being physically sharp on the hand or in the case of the 90's Epiphone Coronet I owned, the high e string was able to actually get stuck under the fret end and created a really neat (although completely undesirable) harmonic droning e.
I also used the dual grit diamond files for crowning the frets this time. The files have a 150 and a 300 grit surface. I found the 300 grit surface to be WAY too slow for me. I was surprised actually. I expected it to cut much faster. As with the traditional files, I found that lubricating the file helped it cut as well.
One thing that separates diamond files from traditional files is that the diamond files can cut with a push and a pull stroke. The diamonds will last forever themselves but are only as good as the bond that they have with the tool. My understanding is that the industrial diamonds are electronically deposited on the surface of the file. I'd think the bond was pretty good, but still, I like to try and take care of my tools.
One thing I had a bit of difficulty with when using the crowning files was which size file to use. They come in narrow, medium, and wide. Narrow wire isn't particularly common on modern instruments and wide wire is what I'd think was on a bass guitar, so I went with medium. However, I think there is a trend toward wider wire now which means that it isn't always clear as to which file to use.
I also found doing an even job with the diamond files to be easier. Perhaps my one previous try at crowning the frets helped or perhaps I am just better at using the diamond crowning files. Only time will tell as I have not yet given up on the traditional files. I have plenty of junker guitars that I bought at flea markets to hone my skills with.
As an unrelated note, why do vises have to be so expensive? Or rather why do cheap vises have to be made like scrap metal?
-Zach
