DIY Fret Leveling & crowning

[skunc]

There are so many hackers out there, I did not trust anyone who was close-by and reasonable. The pros with a good name are too expensive and too long to wait. I bought and made a few tools and re-fretted my Gibson SG Custom (ebony board). Anyone with some manual dexterity and good vision can do it. I made my own sanding beam using a cheap level. I first got a good Stewmac straight edge and took it to the home improvement store. Most levels are truly flat. I did the same when looking for files. The best work is the use of under string levelers. My action can be as low as 0.020" at the 12th fret using these. Definitely practice on a cheap yard sale neck. You learn a lot without messing up your nice guitar.

.020? Wow! Legendary. That is better than a plek machine!

 

[lwknives]

TBH, I wouldn’t want to do a fret job with anything that wasn’t true to less than .001” over two feet.

I get that but the problem is that sandpaper isnt good to within .001 over 2 feet. At some point good enough is good enough. If you really want that level of accuracy you will want to have a diamond file not a straight surface with sandpaper glued to it.

 

[Rex]

I get that but the problem is that sandpaper isnt good to within .001 over 2 feet. At some point good enough is good enough. If you really want that level of accuracy you will want to have a diamond file not a straight surface with sandpaper glued to it.

Sandpaper attached to a true leveling beam gives is repeatable results with less than .001” error every time.

 

[lauke-lux]

Sandpaper attached to a true leveling beam gives is repeatable results with less than .001” error every time.

I don't see any sandpaper problem either. In case of any remaining ruggedness you can always finish of carefully with some steel wool (tape the neck thoroughly)

 

[lwknives]

I don't see any sandpaper problem either. In case of any remaining ruggedness you can always finish of carefully with some steel wool (tape the neck thoroughly)

Sand paper is where its at but .001" over a fret board is kind of hard to measure. I would think that the difference between a leveling beam with .001"/2' would be pretty much indistinguishable from a beam with .002"/2'. Depending on how good you are at applying the sandpaper and how good your sandpaper is you could end up having a fret height variation of .0005" using either beam.
My only point was that purchasing a $150 sanding beam may not give you that much better results than a $40 level purchased at home depot. My test is I get two levels and if I cant see daylight between them with multiple angles and positions its probably flat enough.

 

[lauke-lux]

Sand paper is where its at but .001" over a fret board is kind of hard to measure. I would think that the difference between a leveling beam with .001"/2' would be pretty much indistinguishable from a beam with .002"/2'. Depending on how good you are at applying the sandpaper and how good your sandpaper is you could end up having a fret height variation of .0005" using either beam.
My only point was that purchasing a $150 sanding beam may not give you that much better results than a $40 level purchased at home depot. My test is I get two levels and if I cant see daylight between them with multiple angles and positions its probably flat enough.

Sure. My personal view is to let do some things by others....it's like redoing wallpaper. When you do it yourself you'll remind yourself of the smallest error you made every time you walk along, when done by another you'll be happy with the result. Etc

 

[JoKeR III]

Sure. My personal view is to let do some things by others....it's like redoing wallpaper. When you do it yourself you'll remind yourself of the smallest error you made every time you walk along, when done by another you'll be happy with the result. Etc

Absolutely! People should do what makes them the most comfortable and gives them the best results. I was one of those kids who took everything apart just to see how things worked. Over the course of 50+ years of doing this, I've developed a lot of skills and a confidence that I can figure out how to do most things I need to have done. It then becomes a two-fold question for me- 1. Can I or do I feel comfortable doing it? 2. Is it worth my time to do it or am I better off spending the money to have someone else do it?

There are things I will do around our house or on our cars but sometimes it is more convenient to spend the money and just have someone else do it. Granted -and not trying to sound arrogant here- they need to be able to do it at least as well as I can, otherwise we're just wasting our money. There are other things I'm simply not comfortable doing, don't know how to do or am not equipped to do. In these cases, absolutely a no-brainer- spend the money!

When it comes to hobbies, time usually isn't a consideration for most people. Having a partial disability, working on guitars has been incredibly rewarding and actually quite therapeutic. Others are simply too busy and would rather spend the extra time they have playing guitar rather than working on them. Really no wrong philosophy or approach here but again, people should know their limitations.

 

[unix-guy]

When you do it yourself you'll remind yourself of the smallest error you made every time you walk along, when done by another you'll be happy with the result. Etc

Not me... Unfortunately, I have an eye for "flaws". I'll notice minor issues in someone else's work and it will bug me more because I paid a professional to do it!

 

[Rex]

.001" over a fret board is kind of hard to measure.

It's easy to measure. All you need are feeler gauges and a straight edge you can trust down to .001".

I would think that the difference between a leveling beam with .001"/2' would be pretty much indistinguishable from a beam with .002"/2'.

That depends on what you're going for. That's certainly good enough to improve a neck that's significantly out of level. But we shoot for about .004" of relief after setup. If the frets are uneven by .002", we're eating up half of that relief just to account for unevenness in the frets, and that won't do.

My test is I get two levels and if I cant see daylight between them with multiple angles and positions its probably flat enough.

That will get you most of the way there. But a .001" feeler gauge can reveal gaps that your eyes miss. Again, that's good enough in many situations, but not good enough to know that you nailed it.

 

[Muad'zin]

Boy, just can't have a differing opinion here can we? There are some people who would rather spend the money to have someone do the work for them, others who feel that why have someone else do something they can do themselves. Nothing wrong with either point of view. Yes, there are certain jobs that have more potential to "ruin" a guitar than others but remember; those "professionals" had to learn at some point as well.

Thing is, not saying this is the case here in this thread, but when I was still building pedals a lot every time I said to people that I could build their fancy boutique €250-300 if not more pedals for like €25 in parts and suggested they should do too they reacted really insulted. They huffed a lot about like not everyone can solder, like it is some magical mysterious ability, hell, if I can learn to do it anyone can, but what I really think is that people take pride in their expensive trinkets. They feel that that gives them status. To have a real $1000 Klon on their board gives them bragging rights. To have their guitars taken care of by famous luthier X, that sort of thing. And then for some hack to come along and say you could have done that yourself for a fraction of that money, that takes away some of that status. So they become defensive at best, and downright nasty at worst.

This is why nowadays I mostly just nod when they say they have expensive overdrive X and expensive delay Y on their boards instead of saying yeah I could probably have built your entire pedal board for the price of that one pedal alone. And why not? Life's too short to get into arguments that way. I save money building my own shit, that makes me happy, they get to brag and feel good that way. Everybody does their own thing and happiness follows and life is better for everyone. Okay, occasionally I'll just give in into my OCD and mention the DIY option, but I try to contain it to a minimum.

Once you’ve earned your living at it, you start to realize that $300 isn’t at all unreasonable for three to five hours of your time, plus the cost of maintaining a shop and running a business.

I wouldn't dream to say that I earn my living with it, hobbyist mostly, but Thomann can sell a Harley Benton guitar for less money then I have to spend on wood alone for my builds. Add in all other materials and I'm still 2 to 3 times more expensive then the most expensive Harley Benton guitar on cost alone. And that's excluding my own time and living expenses. It's hard to compete with that kind of economy of scale and the sheer bottomless capacity of China's factories.

 

[solo-act]

Sandpaper attached to a true leveling beam gives is repeatable results with less than .001” error every time.

Why not a stainless true leveling beam with diamond in 2 grits - one on each side - and skip the whole sandpaper thing?

I'm guessing it'd be too expensive? I looked for one but only found thin 8 inch diamond fret levelers. Seems it'd be a lot easier with diamond true leveling beam.

 

[FenderJunkie]

I've always used a Stumac 24" leveling beam and 400 grit sticky back sandpaper. After I'm done a leveling the frets are perfect across the entire neck. The back and forth action during the sanding/leveling process with take care of any microns of difference in uniformity of the sandpaper.

 

[Rex]

Why not a stainless true leveling beam with diamond in 2 grits - one on each side - and skip the whole sandpaper thing?

I'm guessing it'd be too expensive? I looked for one but only found thin 8 inch diamond fret levelers. Seems it'd be a lot easier with diamond true leveling beam.

That could work, if you can find such a thing. The problem with diamond abrasives is that they wear away with use and become less aggressive. Then you’d have to replace the entire beam.

 

[lwknives]

Why not a stainless true leveling beam with diamond in 2 grits - one on each side - and skip the whole sandpaper thing?

I'm guessing it'd be too expensive? I looked for one but only found thin 8 inch diamond fret levelers. Seems it'd be a lot easier with diamond true leveling beam.

This would be the ideal thing to have! But yes, very expensive!

 

[Chewie5150]

THis has me inspired to take care of some fret sprout on my EVH striped series guitar. Gonna order a file from stewmac. I plan to just do each fret at at time. tape things up carefully and take my time. Polishing after really all that necessary? if so, suggestions on what to use? stewmac has a set of polishing materials but i dont want to spend $60

 

[lwknives]

THis has me inspired to take care of some fret sprout on my EVH striped series guitar. Gonna order a file from stewmac. I plan to just do each fret at at time. tape things up carefully and take my time. Polishing after really all that necessary? if so, suggestions on what to use? stewmac has a set of polishing materials but i dont want to spend $60

I would suggest buying a straight edge that is at least 20" long and using sandpaper vs buying a file. This makes the job a bit easier.
Also, polishing is extremely important! I would suggest a diamond crowning file but I have also used sandpaper wrapped around a piece of wood.

 

[ScotHessler]

OK, so anyone sell a good leveling beam that isn't $100? I would make my own if I had a good surface grinder at work...

 

[lwknives]

This is what I use https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai...wi0gL2l9q_nAhUAmHIEHZAUCjwQwg96BAgKEA4&adurl=