crowning frets

Gypton

I agree, crowning almost never happens without a leveling. As you can see, many different ways to go about it- different strokes! Definitely one of those "try it on an old beater first" type of jobs.

jorri

you certainly don't want bowed neck when levelling, its plain wrong IF your levelling process creates a flat fret profile, which most do using a long sanding block. if you do individual frets, this may be correct.

otherwise you end up with a bowed neck whilst the frets are straight, so you have no relief.
the ideal situation is a straighter neck, but with relief in the frets. many who level frets put in a back bow to achieve this.

one observation as to why this is: my guitar sounds better with a flatter neck relief, on an open string-it rings more and is not floppy, however this is the open only and the others just buzz. you need frets to have relief, you don't need the neck to have much. its completely backwards against physics to go for a bent neck and flat lines of frets.

and do you take off the 12-15/1000" of frets which you would need if you were to level a bowed neck, seen as this is the relief required with a proper set up- you take away a large chunk of some of the frets. then re-string-oh wait the necks got no relief and needs to be ridiculously bent to get that 12/1000 back.

Jeff Moore

Your in the majority - wanting relief in your neck. I like perfectly straight frets (no relief) in a finished fret job on a refretted or fret-leveled neck, but I'm not recommending this.
The following only refers to fret leveling. If you need a truss rod adjustment or a fret board leveling on a neck, that's a separate issue.

You do want a "bowed" neck when leveling. You must bow the neck precisely (before you level the frets) to achieve the result you want whether you want relief in the frets or dead level frets. Whether you want level frets or frets with relief in the them, you must bow the neck before you level frets to achieve either result.

Let's imagine you want perfectly level frets after the strings are on and up to pitch (again, not to recommend this but because its the easiest example. Then, before you level your frets to achieve an unrelieved frets, you will have to bow the neck in the exact amount that the string tension bows it (with the strings off - while you level them). When the strings go back on, your frets will be level - no relief. If you want relief in the frets you will have to bow the neck an exact amount (the amount of relief you choose) less than described above. Either way your will have to find out the amount of bow to add -without the string tension- that exactly replicates the string tension to know where dead level is -with the string tension- to be able to add the amount of relief you choose, whether you choose 0 relief or as you suggest .014" relief.
If you don't bow the neck at all before you level the frets - if you level the frets on a perfectly straight neck- when you restring your guitar, you will wind up with whatever relief your neck happens to take on from the added tension of the strings. This will result in more relief than is acceptable.
So you must precisely bow the neck prior to leveling regardless of how much relief you want.

I don't level individual frets because I want all the frets to be leveled in relationship to each other and I only use a long sanding block (homemade) but long like the stew mac leveling blocks. Even if just a couple frets are out of whack, I just live with it or do them all.