remove old finish from fret wire

[WindsurfMaui]

  OK I messed up. I bought a maple vintage/modern neck finished in satin from Warmoth a couple of years ago. And before I could put it on a body I got busy and it has been in the box for the last couple of years. (Side note it is very frustrating how many new developments have come along  b/c now I wouldn't be buying a neck that isn't roasted and doesn't have stainless steel frets. Can we please get all the new discovers and techniques all at once so I don't end up owning necks that don't have the features I prefer, please.)  :>) 

In any event, now that I have plenty of quarantine time I put the neck on a Fender Strat I own last night but then I realized the satin finish on the maple neck has hardened on the frets.  So I have to remove this from the frets. I watched a video on Youtube by a fellow who used a knife to cut the coating all around the edges of the fret and it just lifted off. However I believe this coating has hardened and won't just lift off. So what do I use to clean it off the frets? I own some micro mesh from Stew Mac can I use that without damaging the nickel frets? Or a knife edge? I prefer to not use sand paper or anything that would damage the frets. Thanks

 

[RoboNarples]

It should come off with normal amounts of fret polishing.

 

[jay4321]

If a maple fretboard I'd get a fretboard protector, and go to it with some 0000 (not 000) steel wool. Polish with Mother's or something like that and then clean off.

Pro tip, you can do with tape also, but I believe the satin finishes are nitro and some tape can interact with that. But if you you do use tape, lay the strips of tape lengthwise along the side FIRST, so you can peel everything above off at once when it's time to remove it. But I'd just invest a few bucks in a fret protector.

2nd pro tip - keep steel wool away from your pickups...if you don't want to remove the neck, then tape off the pickups and have some tape sticky side up. You really don't want those pieces anywhere near the magnets.

There are other ways to do this, some a little gentler, some more aggressive and risky. But if this is a stock factory fret install you should be just fine, I've done it countless times. It's easy, cheap, relatively-low risk, pretty fast and anyone can do it. You're not going to take off much of anything besides the finish on the frets.

 

[PhilHill]

A replacement for quad 0 steel wool is extra fine Scotch-brite pad. No metal then. I've found them to do just as well as steel wool. :icon_thumright: 

 

[Logrinn]

And lastly - you could just string it up and play it. The strings will remove the finish from the frets pretty quickly, especially if you do a lot of bending.

 

[WindsurfMaui]

That is what I thought but the coating has set and it doesn't come off easily at all.

 

[Hendrix]

for the SS frets it much easier, I use a steel rulers carefully scraping it off on top then polished it.

for the nickel frets need to be more  careful , I probably use some hard plastic card / credit card  etc  scraping it off first .

 

[Dazkeirle]

A replacement for quad 0 steel wool is extra fine Scotch-brite pad. No metal then. I've found them to do just as well as steel wool. :icon_thumright:

I use the Stewmac 0000 pads.

No way I'm letting steel wool anywhere near my guitars, even if just in the same room I know at some point I'm gonna find little bits of steel have floated onto a pickup.