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Let’s finish off these frets! Last we left them, they were hammered into place. None popped out so I first need to CA (bonafide!) glue them in place. This accomplishes a couple of things (1) holds down the ends without the tangs, and (2) fills the gaps in the tang slot, which supposedly makes for a better guitar tone. And I also suppose (3) makes it a nightmare for whoever tries to refret the guitar in twenty years if it ever comes to that…
But first, I slather the neck with wax in hopes of managing any excess CA glue that might run out of the slots.
Then, we pipette the glue in. First time I ever did this, and I used way too much. I ended up having to spend an hour cleaning up the excess on the fretboard that the wax didn’t hold off. No pics of that though – this is Facebook, where everything is hunky dory!
It’s supposedly 30 second CA glue, but I let the glue cure overnight to make it really hard to clean up later… Next day, I use flush trim cutters to snip off the fret ends as something close to a 45 degree angle. There will be much filing and sanding later to make this prettier.
Filing then commences. First off I use a bastard file to rough in a 45 degree angle along each edge of the frets. Basically file until I hit the binding.
I spend a little time (ok, an hour) cleaning up the excess CA glue. I pity whoever might try changing these frets down the line…
With the edges roughed out, next comes leveling the frets. Frets should start out so they are all perfectly in a line, but (my) manufacturing tolerances work against this. So to fix it, we first make sure the neck is as straight as we can get it. The funky ruler has notches cut out where the frets are so I can see if the actual neck (i.e. fretboard) is flat. If it’s bowed one way or the other I could adjust the truss rod to straighten it out, but I’m lucky (or I’m building a pretty good neck?), and it’s already fine.
Kinda out of order (my workflow, not the pictures), I use various smaller files to round off the fret ends for speed and comfort…
Prior to leveling, I mark every fret with a Sharpie marker. You’ll see why in a second!
A handy straightedge (a level) gets a strip of bonafide double sided tape and sandpaper…
And we level. Basically this is sandling down the frets a slight bit until all of the Sharpie marker is gone. If I am careful, the radius is still perfect, and all the frets line up.
I can check this with a fret rocker – this has a bunch of little straight edges; if the frets are level I won’t be able to rock it on any given three frets. All is good!
All is good except the tops of the frets. They are suppose to have a nice round top on them, but now they are slightly flattened by the sanding. This fret file has a rounded diamond surface that I use to restore the crown on each fret.
Everything is now level and crowned, but not as smooth as it could/should be. So I tape off the fretboard to protect it from what’s coming next.
First, 320 grit sandpaper (across the top, along the front and back and across the edges).
Then 600 grit. My hands look like Dick Van Dyke’s in “Mary Poppins”!
Finally, 00 and 0000 steel wool to polish the frets to final polish…ness…
And there we have it! The binding needs a final scrape to clean it up, but that’ll be one of the final cleanups on the guitar. I think all the scary stuff is done!
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