Fret levelling trick

[Wyliee]

I was working on a bass over the weekend and thought I'd share a trick I picked up from a repair shop in NY.

(Evan Gluck at http://www.newyorkguitarrepair.com/)

Evan did a setup class at the last Guild of American Luthiers convention.  This is one way he can do a fret level quickly and accurately.

- This allows you to leave your neck under string tension and level the frets.  You can get your neck nice and straight and keep it that way while you do the levelling.  Faster and easier than trying to use a neck jig to simulate string tension!

- Use a piece of angled aluminum and attach your sandpaper to the aluminum.  The angle allows you to get underneath the strings while you level the frets.

- Once you're done with the level, you can remove the strings to crown and polish the frets.

 

[tfarny]

Evan is my guy! And an awesome, awesome tech he is. Small world. He has done this for my acoustic and my last two warmoths. Another advantage of this approach compared to a radiused block is that compound radius has no effect on the process.  If I didn't have such an awesome guy to go to locally, I might try and do some of this myself.

 

[mayfly]

ok, I admit I'm not quite getting it.  So the aluminum is thin enough to go under the strings, but I don't understand the "angled" angle, and I don't understand how the compound radius is automatically taken care of.

Can you put a pic up of the aluminum at work under the strings?

 

[bagman67]

ok, I admit I'm not quite getting it.  So the aluminum is thin enough to go under the strings, but I don't understand the "angled" angle, and I don't understand how the compound radius is automatically taken care of.

Can you put a pic up of the aluminum at work under the strings?

I dunno about the compound radius issue, but I think the angled aluminum gives you a big fat handle sticking up from the strip that's actually making contact with the frets.

 

[Cagey]

If the frets are bad enough, I'll use a long piece of rigid aluminum for levelling too, followed by some extra fine diamond sharpening steels to clean them up. But, I have to pull the strings first. Any setup needs a new set of strings anyway. They're cheap. Why try and save them? (although, maybe on a bass you'd try to. Those can be pricey) I've never understood the value of levelling under string tension, or trying to simulate that tension with a jig. I always remove the strings and straighten the neck with the truss rod first, (sometimes knock the nut off), and go from there. I don't need to simulate anything. I want it straight, and that's it.

Of course, I support the neck on a caul so it doesn't flex while I'm working on it. Otherwise, you could end up grinding a slight bow or relief into the frets.

Once done with the subsequent crowning/dressing/polishing, I use the truss rod to put some relief back in (if I remember to - I notoriously forget it and try to set up on a straight neck).

 

[stubhead]

The argument is that a neck held straight by string tension against the truss rod, is going to be somewhat-differently curved than a neck which is "straightened" just by adjusting the truss rod after removing the strings. It makes a certain amount of theoretical sense, like if you were using the fret-leveling to compensate for a neck with the usual tiny s-curve that occurs after a single rod and neck fight each other for a decade. But I've never encountered it myself, and with the price of necks vs. the price of shop time it's hard to reason out (theoretically) why you'd want to save a goinked neck anyway. Maybe if it had been the neck you wrote your million-seller on, in which case you wouldn't be reading this or bringing it to me. I'm not sure if I've ever heard of a Warmoth neck with the DOUBLE rod ever warping, no finish, oil, 15-66's or anything else. What could you do to that rod anyway.... :icon_scratch:

I've been using sandpaper exclusively to do fretwork for several years now, no teethmarks, no fuss, you just have to be aware of your shrapnel. It takes like 1/2 sheet each of 320, 400 and 1500 to do a whole neck - $1.70?

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

That's brilliant!

 

[greywolf]

good tip , Thanks!