Level & Crown fret work

scottp

scottp

Fractal Fanatic
For the guys who regularly do this, how much of the fret tops do you leave flat when crowning?

Thanks.
 
I crown mine so there is a very fine Line (Land) left from the marker pen in the centre of the fret and then I lightly smooth the frets over at right angles with fine wet and dry before the various polishing stages.
 
I think it helps wear not to take to much shoulder away . "Bus topping" fret profile it used to be called but you can only do it with a triangle file by hand.
 
Brewce said:
Just as an aside, I just noticed this yesterday...

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TOTAL BS. If the joker thinks that you don't need experience and a whole bunch of other tools to do a basic fret dress then he is more stupid than he looks . This will be a paid advertisement for that file. You can dumb down one aspect of the process but it will just result in idiot diagnostic issues being "fixed" with this . The number of guitars that I see that need a refret because of incompetent use of "make it easier" tools would shock you. Even the use of the fret rocker without a whole lot of other assessments and adjustments first will give you seriously misleading information. Even if the tool is good to sell it like this is like saying that buying a high quality spanner means you can fix your own car. This is charlatan YouTube at its absolute worst.
 
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I've used a triangle file, the stew mac Z file, the Fret Guru, etc.... they're all tools that work well in some instances and not so well in others. There's really no way to do a good fret job without doing some bad ones first, no substitute for experience, regardless of the tool.

I usually leave a strip around ~1mm when re-crowning, you end up getting a feel for it. It's pretty easy to take off that last little bit if you're not careful. The shoulder usually rounds off a tiny bit when doing your final polishing anyways.
 
Planta Fantasma said:
I knew I was doing something wrong. I'm always buyin' to much stuff.....because,
this is what I use for crowning, fretting & buffing.... ;)

Cheers!
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I started when you basically had to make your own tools so I don't buy a huge number and prefer the quality of high end engineering tools to the mostly low quality crap that passes for "luthier" tools.
 
Getting the frets level is the most crucial part of a fret job. Crowning and shaping them isn’t that hard. It’s just time consuming. Everyone has their own methods and tools. The only way to learn is to practice. There is nothing wrong with the Z file or the Music Nomad file. If they work for you, use them.
 
Andy Eagle said:
I started when you basically had to make your own tools so I don't buy a huge number and prefer the quality of high end engineering tools to the mostly low quality crap that passes for "luthier" tools.
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Have you ever seen a Chapman Railboard?
They're really unique in that the frets are a milled part of the 'rail'. There's a radial relief milled into the frets of the larger strings. Barely any relief at the first fret & max relief around the 12th. As a result the action can be adjusted lower & more comfortable that the traditional 'Sticks'.
 

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Planta Fantasma said:
Have you ever seen a Chapman Railboard?
They're really unique in that the frets are a milled part of the 'rail'. There's a radial relief milled into the frets of the larger strings. Barely any relief at the first fret & max relief around the 12th. As a result the action can be adjusted lower & more comfortable that the traditional 'Sticks'.
Click to expand...
I've played a few (badly) but never had to work on the fretboard of one.
 
Andy Eagle said:
TOTAL BS. If the joker thinks that you don't need experience and a whole bunch of other tools to do a basic fret dress then he is more stupid than he looks . This will be a paid advertisement for that file. You can dumb down one aspect of the process but it will just result in idiot diagnostic issues being "fixed" with this . The number of guitars that I see that need a refret because of incompetent use of "make it easier" tools would shock you. Even the use of the fret rocker without a whole lot of other assessments and adjustments first will give you seriously misleading information. Even if the tool is good to sell it like this is like saying that buying a high quality spanner means you can fix your own car. This is charlatan YouTube at its absolute worst.
Click to expand...
Absolutely this, I can’t count how many guitars I had on my workbench with a home made fret job.
 
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