Fret dressing tools

1 Sharpening stone

2 Knife blade with handle

3 Needle files

4 Top: concave diamond fret file; bottom: Gurian fret file; its angled handle facilitates fret-dressing over the body on guitars with glued-in necks.

5 Straight edges in various lengths for checking if frets are level

6 Blue textmarker

7Fret-leveling file

80000 steel wool

9Feeler gauges

Tightening the truss rod nut

Never tighten the truss rod adjustment nut by more than a quarter of a turn, and always do it very, very carefully: there is nothing more annoying than a broken thread or truss rod. If nothing moves at all, this is a definite sign that something is wrong with the truss rod. A correctly installed truss rod already works after only a slight turn of the nut.

Allow some time until a new truss rod tension has consequences on the neck. Sometimes you can speed things up by laying the neck on your knees and “bending” it in the right direction.

10

11

14

The frets can now be colored with a blue textmarker (12). Using a flat-surfaced sharpening stone, a commercially available fret-leveling file (13) or a home-made fret file (see drawing below) work all frets until metal reappears on them. An alternative would be to use a long straight-planed piece of wood (14), about 25mm (1") in width, onto the edge of which a strip of 120grit sandpaper is glued with spray glue. The piece of wood used should be slightly longer than the fingerboard.

On compound-radiused fingerboards you should always work radially, in the direction of the strings. You can also do this on a cylindrically-radiused fingerboard: this will lead to a small compound radius being formed on the frets. Conversely, if you want to keep the cylindrical radius of the fingerboard, always work strictly parallel to the neck center line (which means that you will partly have to file on “air”).

Check the progress you make with dressing the frets at regular intervals; do so by placing a straight edge along the length of the fingerboard. Short edges are suitable for checking shorter areas. It is strongly advisable to mask the entire fingerboard with adhesive tape. This will mean a little more work now, but will be appreciated later as it is definitely less time-consuming to tape off the fingerboard than having to remove fret-dressing marks and scratches from the fingerboard.

Rocking neck rest

The neck rest above is extremely useful for holding necks in position while different kinds of work are carried out on a guitar. This rest can rock and can therefore adapt well to any guitar. With a bandsaw such neck rests can be cut out from a glued-together block of hardwood. The cork-lined top surfaces on which the neck rests offer excellent protection against damage. Make sure the neck rest is wide enough at its base to keep it from falling over sideways.

Home-made fret leveling file

Rough dimensions: Width: 20mm (3/4")

Length: 150mm-200mm (6"-73/4")

Wood Mounting tape

8mm (5/16") glass Sandpaper

Using a short straight edge check the frets once more three by three. If the edge should rock, the point of the middle fret on which the edge rests is too high and has to be reworked with a file (1). Do so until the rocking stops. One or two strokes of the file will do. Carry out such checks across the width of each fret, then move on by one fret and continue until all frets on the fingerboard have been checked. The higher you move up the fingerboard, the closer the distances between the frets will get and ever-shorter edges will be needed. Finally, remove the worst filing marks with 320-grit sandpaper and a sanding block (2).

Next the fret crowns have to be re-rounded. If they were left in the state they're in after leveling, the strings would not be pressed against the frets exactly in the middle and all the precision work of cutting the fret slots would have been in vain (3). Color the frets once again – the color helps to control the progress made - and round the crowns with a suitable file. Some guitarbuilders use only a triangular file and no other tools for crowning the frets (4). These special files have rounded corners so as to avoid marring the fingerboard. Move the file over the frets very quickly, working alternately on the two sides of the frets.

Fret files are concave and available for various fretwire sizes. The file shown in picture 5 is diamond-coated, comes in 150-grit and 300-grit versions and leaves fewer “chatter marks” than conventional fret files (which can obviously also be used).

Make sure to leave a narrow line across the top of the fret crowns (6); after all the hard work put into leveling the frets their height must not be tampered with now.

Any burrs that could mar the player's fingers are removed by carefully filing the ends of the frets with a triangular file (7) and subsequently rounding them with a fine fret file (8).

Any filing marks on the fret crowns are removed with a folded piece of 600-grit sandpaper (9). Hold the paper between two fingers as you move it over the frets. Finish by polishing all the frets first with 000 steel wool (10) and then each fret separately with 0000 steel wool until they begin to shine.

Check at regular intervals if the frets are perfectly level (11).

Oiling the fingerboard surface

All fingerboards except lacquered maple ones require thorough cleaning and the application of a thin coat of fingerboard oil (available from guitarmakers' suppliers) or gun stock oil before the guitar parts are finally assembled.

Fret polishing

Professionals additionally polish their frets to a high sheen with a buffing wheel. A very good alternative would be to polish each fret individually to a high gloss with metal polish applied on a small polishing wheel mounted on a Dremel (or similar) tool. Make sure to mask the fingerboard beforehand and remember that glue can be dissolved if a fret gets too hot!