crowning frets

dapperdan7

so my gj guitar plays with intonation issues due to hard playing.has anyone crowned their own frets and how involved is that? tools needed? warnings and advice?

thanx
dan

Jeff Moore

I've crowned and re-fretted maybe 8 times, my own guitars. So I'm know expert.
If the divats - valleys - whatever you call the depression where the strings eat into the fret: If these are at all deep, I think you need to refret. You can probably judge it yourself.
I would take all the frets down to the level of the lowest. In other words I aim at a perfectly straight line of frets under each string.

I could explain my process but its pretty home spun and involved. You should get a booklet or look online for a methodology that suits the tools you've got. I have the stew mac diamond grit fret files with 4 different radius's. They work well and didn't seem to require much skill. I use a common hand held magnifying glass to get a look at the radius while I'm crowning. The process of taking the divats out though is more involved (for me) than going after a few frets. I want things very straight which to me means going after all the frets till there straight when checked with a straight edge thats long enough (18") to touch all the frets a once. I then slide (when its level, I can no longer slide) a piece of paper between the straight edge and the fret. The straight edge and paper are an easy way to check things anyway. But before you level all the frets, you have to get the neck bowed with the same tension as it had when the strings were on.
I tend to refret completely if the divats are at all bad. I love the cleaned up intonation and playability when I refret.
I'd look for a reference work online or other.

Bones

Try this book:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Books,_plan ... _Step.html

Browse around on that site for tools also.

Jazzaferri

Bob Benedetto's How to build and Archtop guitar has some good info on setup and fretting.

Gypton

Frets.com has a few very useful tutorials on fretwork. Just like lutherie, there are many different ways to go about it and different opinions as well. Frets.com will just show one guy's way of doing it, everyone seems to have their own way.

Before attemping to do it yourself, find out what it will cost to have a professional do it. Consider that cost against how often you plan to do your fretwork in the future. I spent over 300usd on tools from stewmac- levelers, straightedges, files, etc as well as a lot of tools and sandpaper locally. Also consider the time involved for the learning curve, it may take a few afternoons of work in the beginning. I learned fretwork because I have been disapointed with jobs I've had done locally, they're really expensive locally, and I have a lot of guitars. If you try to do it with out the right tools, you will end up with a half-assed job thats not much better than it was before. On an expensive instrument thats risky. If it comes to a refret, now thats a much bigger job.

Jeff Moore wrote:

But before you level all the frets, you have to get the neck bowed with the same tension as it had when the strings were on.

I disagree, if you level a neck with forward bow, you are putting a backbow curve in to the plane of the frets- the frets will be lower at the nut and near the end of the board, but higher in the middle. Sometimes this is desirable, like a neck with too much forward bow that won't straighten out, but I like to take off the bare minimum of fret material, so I start with a neck as straight as possible and level while supporting the neck in a way so as not to bend the neck with the pressure of the leveler. I also like to take off an extra couple thousanths of an inch off the bridge end of the fretboard from the 12th fret up, just to make a little more room for the vibrating string.

Theres nothing quite like the playability of well-leveled and polished frets. I'm sure it's a big part of the praise Duponts get for their playability, good fretwork is labor intensive and most shops rush the job to to keep costs down- with a high end guitar part of that high price is paying for this labor.

Jazzaferri

Benedetto just uses a flat file :shock: Amazing what skill can do

Gypton

For crowning I usually prefer a triangle file, the fret files don't always fit properly over the fret. Theres also the lazy way of crowning, just taking piece of 800 grit and run your fingers across the fretboard, tends to knock the corners off and give the frets slightly less round, 'schoolbus'-like tops. This works well if you haven't taken much off with the leveler and the frets are not completely squared-flat.

bill raymond

Crowning the frets is only done after they are all leveled or re-leveled (unless whoever did the previous fretwork didn't crown them). Fretwork isn't really complicated to do, but you should learn to do it right. The above-cited references are a good start. You don't really need to put a lot of money into tools, but you should be sure you do have what you need to do the job right. If you study up you should be able to do your own fretwork, if you so choose. Also, the Musical Instrument Makers Forum (www.mimf.com) is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn about working on guitars.

Jeff Moore

Jeff Moore wrote:
But before you level all the frets, you have to get the neck bowed with the same tension as it had when the strings were on.

Gypton says:
I disagree, if you level a neck with forward bow, you are putting a backbow curve in to the plane of the frets- the frets will be lower at the nut and near the end of the board, but higher in the middle.

Jeff says:
When you take the strings off, the plane of the neck with change. It will take on some amount of "forward bow" or be convex. If you try to "level" the frets with the neck in this condition, they will not be flat or level when you restring.

That's why you must do the work "with the same tension as the neck had when the strings were on". The only shape that matters is the shape the neck takes when the strings are on. So when leveling the frets (with the strings are off while your working) you must artificially bring the neck to the plane it was in when the strings are on. This is especially true if your aiming (as I do) for a perfectly flat line of frets.

A lot of guys want "relief" or a concavity in the line of frets, but even then you will have to take the shape of the unstrung neck into account to get the relief you want.

If you use clamps to recreate the plane the neck had when the strings were on and then level the frets, the frets will assume the same plane when you re-tension the neck with strings. If you don't artificially create the neck tension you'll have some "relief" or concavity in the line of frets.

Gypton

Jeff Moore wrote:

Jeff Moore wrote:
But before you level all the frets, you have to get the neck bowed with the same tension as it had when the strings were on.

Gypton says:
I disagree, if you level a neck with forward bow, you are putting a backbow curve in to the plane of the frets- the frets will be lower at the nut and near the end of the board, but higher in the middle.

Jeff says:
When you take the strings off, the plane of the neck with change. It will take on some amount of "forward bow" or be convex. If you try to "level" the frets with the neck in this condition, they will not be flat or level when you restring.

That's why you must do the work "with the same tension as the neck had when the strings were on". The only shape that matters is the shape the neck takes when the strings are on. So when leveling the frets (with the strings are off while your working) you must artificially bring the neck to the plane it was in when the strings are on. This is especially true if your aiming (as I do) for a perfectly flat line of frets.

A lot of guys want "relief" or a concavity in the line of frets, but even then you will have to take the shape of the unstrung neck into account to get the relief you want.

If you use clamps to recreate the plane the neck had when the strings were on and then level the frets, the frets will assume the same plane when you re-tension the neck with strings. If you don't artificially create the neck tension you'll have some "relief" or concavity in the line of frets.

This is all may be true on a guitar without a truss rod, but since most guitars now have truss rods we now have control over relief. My point is, take the strings off, adjust the truss rod until the neck is as close to perfectly straight as possible, do fretwork, than when strings are put on and tuned to pitch, the neck will forward bow, adding relief. Adjust truss rod to desired relief at this point. I just don't see the point in filing a relief curve into the frets.
If there is something wrong with the neck, if it is warped or has a hump etc., than leveling with anything other than a straight neck may apply, but in my experience the straight- neck method has provided the best results on healthy necks.

Jeff Moore

We're in agreement on adjusting the neck to imitate string tension before leveling. How you get your neck tensioned (truss rod, clamps, or other) is less important to me than that if you don't you'll have a mess.

The question was about crowning frets, and I hadn't put it together in my own mind but I've never just crowned frets. Crowning has for me always come after leveling and almost as often after re-fretting and leveling.

I think that is the idea I want to leave for the questioner: if you have worn frets with string worn ditches in them, you can't start with crowning. If the ditches aren't that deep you can start with leveling. If their deep, you gotta re-fret.