re fretting your guitar

8/12/2019 Re Fretting your guitar

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We at GuitarAttack have a history ofnot leaving well enough alone. Thisis the story of how we "fixed" a neckbuilt for one of our alder GS guitars.This neck is one of the early ones

with the "six-on-a-side" tuners.Warning: The techniues shown inthis article are !otentially dangerousand clearly ca!able of destroying anotherwise sound guitar neck. Trythese techniues at your own riskand en#oy$

The first ste! was to re%ove thefrets. &sing our trusty soldering ironand fret !ulling !liers fro% Stew'ac

we re%oved the frets one byone...carefully.Safety Ti!: (f your frets were gluedin by a "luthier" using su!erglue thistechniue will !roduce very toxicfu%es. We reco%%end co%!letingthis task in a well-ventilated roo%with a fan ca!able of %oving so%eair$

)nce the frets were out we startedon changing the radius on the

fingerboard. The fingerboard had asort of old *ender + ," radius andwe wanted to %ake it a little flatterand bring it down to ,".*irst we ad#usted the neck !erfectlyflat. When you !ull frets the neck/sbow will change. (f you sand it withthe bow you/ll really %ake thingsdifficult when you try to fret it.

&sing our trusty Stew'ac ," radiussanding block and so%e 0%Sandblaster ,12 !a!er we startedthe !rocess.

Safety Ti!: This !rocess isirreversible. 3o not try this if 4a5 6ouhave a valuable guitar 4b5 6ou can/t
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stand to screw u! your guitar 4c56ou are really unsure or 4d5 all ofthe above.

Su!!orting the neck is crucial. Weare using a Stew'ac su!!ort thatcradles the contour of the neck. (thas cork on the contact surface to!rotect the back of the neck.

&sing the sanding block wecarefully run the block the length ofthe neck kee!ing it straight on thecenterline. We use the ,12 gritbecause we don/t like the bigsanding %arks left in the inlays.

The %a#ority of the %aterial re%ovaloccurs in the center of the neck sowatch those inlays. 3on/t sandthe% out$

We %ade a few !asses thenchecked...%ade a few !asses thenchecked...

The radius tool ke!t us on track andyou can see in this !hoto that weare a!!roaching the desired ,"radius.

7or%ally inlays on %ost co%%ercialnecks are dee! enough to take arelatively shallow radius changefro% +," to ,".


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8ere is a shot of the neck after re-radiusing !rior to cleaning.7ote the dust in the fret slots andthe line of ')9 down the center of

the neck.

7ow we can %ove on to fretting.

Go to 9age We knew that we wanted a shorterfretwire but we had to ensure that itwould fit in the slots.

&sing our trusty radius gauges fro%Autoone we %easured the fretslots. The slots were right where

they needed to be for the fretwire wewere using so we didn/t have toresi;e the% or the fretwire.

(s that lucky< 9robably but %ost ofthe ti%e the slots and the wire areabout right.

We did a standard fret !ress refret

on this neck. 8ere is a shot of theneck with the un-tri%%ed fret wire.=e%e%ber -- we loosened thetension on the neck !rior to frettingto see how the frets would affect thebow of the neck.We use regular Titebond glue underour frets and we like it %uch betterthan using su!erglue for a nu%berof reasons. The biggest is thatsu!erglue really has the !otential to

create a su!er %ess$
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8ere are our tools for tri%%ing thefrets. The safety goggles are a %ustbecause there will be a lot of %etal

flying around. The !liers are flush-cut !liers which do a great #ob onthe ends. *inally the %echanicsgloves !rotect your hands andensure a good gri! on the !liers andthe neck.Starting at the heel end we sni!!edthe fret ends. )ur techniue is tograb the fret end with the !liers sothat the cutting edges of the !liers

are !arallel with the fingerboard. Aswe suee;e the !liers with the righthand we !ush down on the !lierswith our left hand to !revent !o!!ingthe fret out of the slot.

)nce the frets were tri%%ed we hadto s%ooth down the edges to!re!are for a bevel.&sing our %ill file we get the %ain"barb" off the end of the fret for eachfret. 7ote the neck is cla%!ed tothe workbench. This is i%!ortant --you don/t want that neck %ovingaround.

)nce the rough cut is co%!lete weuse the flat sanding board to s%ooththe ends down to the wood. Againwe use ,12-grit 0% Sandblaster

!a!er because of its s%ooth cut.7ote the "fret dust" along the to!edge of the fingerboard aftersanding.
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7ow it is ti%e to bevel the fret ends.8ere is a shot of the neck and thebeveling file fro% Stew'ac. Wereally like this file because it %akesbeveling the fret ends a uick and

efficient #ob. 6ou literally run this fileu! and down the side of the neckuntil the desired bevel is on thefrets. >y the way -- don/t !ut too%uch !ressure on this gadget...seethe safety ti!$Safety Ti!. 7ote the brown ta!e onthe frets. (f this file gets away fro%you while you are really bearingdown it will slide across the fretsand %ake terrible gouges that %ay

not be recoverable. We have had todo !artial refrets after losing controlof one of these files$ 9lease becareful and take your ti%e.

We continued to work the fret endsand once satisfied we were readyfor to level and crown the frets.=e%e%ber -- leveling is getting theto!s of the frets level in relation toeach other using files and sand!a!er and crowing is the !rocedure

for "re-rounding" the to!s of the fretsafter they leveled.8ere is a shot of the neck !rior tota!ing for the level and crown.

Go >ack to 9age , Go to 9age0
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We %ounted the neck to oursurrogate *' body %ade of a slabof '3* and a !iece of 0?"!lywood. The bridge is a Saga T-style %ounted on yet another !iece

of '3*. The entire rig is gluedtogether with Gorilla Glue. See thefoa%all 9ink Slinkys and tuned to!itch. We let the neck set for about02 %inutes and checked the trussrod.

6ou #ust can/t believe how great this

little "guitar" sounds acoustically.We are going to %ount a !icku! onit and see how it sounds through ana%!$

3o you think it needs a finish

re fretting your guitar

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