Quietly Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 The Problem :- When playing my newly acquired LP 2007 Standard I found that sometimes I was digging into the frets and it could happen both sliding up and down the fretboard. Almost like tripping over a fret or hitting a wall. The Cause:- Frets appeared to be almost flat on top and certainly not polished. Solution:- Crown and polish the frets. Let me first say if you have a Tech then use him but unfortunately I do not and sending it back to UK is not a good idea so its a case of do it yourself. I'm posting this as a guide but would add if you are neither sure or confident you can do it then leave it alone. Second golden rule is remember it is easy to take material off of frets but there is no way of putting it back on, take that to mean go slowly and gently. OK here is is a photograph of the frets before hand. Note the frets appear almost flat across the top with very little crowning at all also it is pretty clear that the fret board is very dry and had no treatment for the three years it has been sitting in dealers. Tools you need:- Masking tape Fret Crown File (Stew Mac) Wet and dry abrasive paper 600 Grit Instant marker pen Metal polish or compound (I used Turtle wax safe cut) Fretboard conditioner/oil (I use olive oil) Allow about 4 hours including time for some coffee. OK you are going to need something to rest the neck on while you work and a GEL wrist pad with a little help from a plastic food container works great. I tend to go to extremes but it is very wise to protect the guitar body and I remover the neck pup (Just fold it back and wrap in the plastic) and also drop the toggle switch. One is to protect from dust but also possible marks from tools, plastic carrier bags are great fro slipping the body into LOL. More to follow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Interesting stuff keep us posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quietly Posted March 21, 2010 Author Share Posted March 21, 2010 Once you have masked up and protected the body you need to mask up the fret board. The only reason for masking the fret board is protect it from filings and dirt. The Crown File is smooth on both sides and on the edges so using it cannot scratch the fret board. OK here is the fret board masked up ready to mark the frets with the marker pen. Once you have masked up the fret board it is a good idea to run some masking tape over the nibs (fret binding) before you used the instant marker pen. Not sure if would stain the plastic or not but certainly I would not risk it. Here are the frets all marked with the pen and the I have removed the masking tape protecting the nibs so you can see they never come into contact with the ink. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quietly Posted March 21, 2010 Author Share Posted March 21, 2010 You are now ready to use the crowning file and you will now see the reason for making the frets with an instant marker. We want the crowning file to file off the edges of the fret and we do not want to reduce the fret height. You gently rub the crowning file along the fret following the radius of the fret board. You will see immediately that the blue ink starts to be removed from the edges along with fret filings and what you are aiming for is to leave a very small blue line down the middle. Just say to yourself I cannot put material back on the fret, do it gently and smoothly and take your time. Follow the same procedure with all 22 frets. You can just see the traces of blue on the center of the frets that have been filed. Once you have filed all the frets you can then start to use some wet and dry 600 grit paper to clean them up with. Again do not rub on the top of the fret too much and concentrate on the sides of the frets just to smooth them as much as possible. You can then just wrap the used wet and dry around one finger and flick across the top of the frets just lightly enough to remover any scratches. Once you are happy with that you can then polish the frets with some metal cleaner. Polished frets mean smoother frets and smoother frets mean your pinkies glide over them quicker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quietly Posted March 21, 2010 Author Share Posted March 21, 2010 OK once your happy that the frets are crowned and polished now is a good time just to check that they are still all level with a straight edge. If you have taken your time and given each fret the same amount of treatment there should be no need for any leveling. Obviously if you rub and rub one fret it is going to be lower than the one next to it so be consistent and that is one good reason to take your time on this. It isn't rocket science but it does need that you pay attention to what you are doing. If the frets are level and they look rounded and shinny you can now remove the masking tape. Now is the time to treat the fretboard if it needs it, in this case it absorbed a fine coat of pure olive oil in less than 1 minute from application. Talk about being dry one final treatment and then all wiped off clean. Here she is with the strings back on End result no more digging in the frets or tripping over them, the fret board looks 100% better and the playing of it is improved dramatically. I could go on about the benefits of improved intonation with a crowned fret rather than a flat one but the real benefit here is they play so much faster. Back in her case Oh and do use your guitar tech, do this only if you are confident that you can and also at your own risk if it goes wrong. It will only go wrong if you rush it and file off too much material so be warned. Any questions I will gladly answer them if I can but I do recommend you Google Fret Crowning to see why it is important. Best, Quietly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brundaddy Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Thanks for sharing! It is important for people to know that maintaining our guitars is not some secret magic that we have to pay techs and luthiers to conjure up behind closed doors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quietly Posted March 21, 2010 Author Share Posted March 21, 2010 My pleasure just hope its useful and like you maintaining your guitar means not only do you get to know it better it also plays better. I think time is often something we all have to little of but if you do have the time there are many maintenance jobs you can do yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
80LPC Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Nice work and presentation Quietly. I have just one suggestion - Don't do all that lovely work and then check if the frets are level. Carry out any leveling first, then crown and polish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quietly Posted March 22, 2010 Author Share Posted March 22, 2010 Nice work and presentation Quietly. I have just one suggestion - Don't do all that lovely work and then check if the frets are level. Carry out any leveling first' date=' then crown and polish. [/quote'] Sorry I should have mentioned that the leveling needs to be checked before and after you start the work. The point I was trying to make was that after you have crowned and polished the frets its a good idea to check the leveling before putting the strings back on. Best, Quietly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcmurray Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 Do all LP's have relatively flat frets? I know my studio did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flight959 Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 Lets face it this isnt a maintenance issue... If it had been done properly before it left the factory then you wouldn't have had to waist 4 hours of your time correcting or making it right... Great thread and thanks for posting.... Regards.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quietly Posted March 22, 2010 Author Share Posted March 22, 2010 Do all LP's have relatively flat frets? I know my studio did. No guitar should have flat frets and if it does they need crowning unless of course for some reason you prefer them flat. If due to wear the frets are flat then they will need redressing and crowning and if they are too worn a fret replacement. Apart from any playing considerations the fret slots are cut into the fret board at a very precise and accurate measurement to give perfect intonation. This means that the crown of the fret should be exactly above where the fret slot is cut into the fret board if your fret is flat this is not happening. I do not want to start a quality control war but a brand new quality guitar should come out of the factory with crowned and polished frets if it doesn't then a question mark must hang over quality or perhaps the lack of it . Lastly if you are happy with flat or flattish frets than I honestly would ignore this thread but if you are having playing problems as I was then the above is a remedy that works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quietly Posted March 22, 2010 Author Share Posted March 22, 2010 Lets face it this isnt a maintenance issue... If it had been done properly before it left the factory then you wouldn't have had to waist 4 hours of your time correcting or making it right... Great thread and thanks for posting.... Regards.. Thanks flight959 my pleasure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 A lot of mass produced guitars suffer from this, gotta crank'em out!, the fret detail on both my Gibsons and Fenders could be better. I just took a couple of my guitars for a setup. The tech worked at Gibson for 10 years, he told me each tech has to do 24 setups a day, that would be 3 an hour, thats 20 minutes, that includes stringing the guitar...see the problem here? I am sure this is one of the main reasons Gibson invested in Pleking machines, so the frets are better 'cause if they are not initially the person setting the guitar up is not going to have the time to address any issues unless there is a step on the production line to address the frets after they are pressed and cut into the fingerboard. He also told me that they do cut nuts to accomodate 9's but string the guitars with 10's hnce the nut binding common on a lot of Gibsons. I wonder how many people do even use 9's on their Gibby's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quietly Posted March 22, 2010 Author Share Posted March 22, 2010 A lot of mass produced guitars suffer from this' date=' gotta crank'em out!, the fret detail on both my Gibsons and Fenders could be better. I just took a couple of my guitars for a setup. The tech worked at Gibson for 10 years, he told me each tech has to do 24 setups a day, that would be 3 an hour, thats 20 minutes, that includes stringing the guitar...see the problem here? I am sure this is one of the main reasons Gibson invested in Pleking machines, so the frets are better 'cause if they are not initially the person setting the guitar up is not going to have the time to address any issues unless there is a step on the production line to address the frets after they are pressed and cut into the fingerboard. He also told me that they do cut nuts to accomodate 9's but string the guitars with 10's hnce the nut binding common on a lot of Gibsons. I wonder how many people do even use 9's on their Gibby's.[/quote'] Makes sense but if it is so much mass production and so little time spent on the details it does beg the question are they over priced. I'll put that another way for the price of them they should be set up perfectly before leaving the factory. Have to admit though I am thrilled to bits with the guitar but I can imagine that someone who doesn't know how to resolve the issues could well be very disappointed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GIANTRobOT420 Posted March 26, 2010 Share Posted March 26, 2010 Does anyone know how much a tech usually charges to do a crown and polish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Paul Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Quietly - thanks for a great step-by-step description. I've seen similar "how to's" before, but your's is very good. I've been thinking about doing this job on my newly-acquired 70's Shergold Meteor (see here: http://guitar-collector.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=382 ). It's 35 years old and has very flat frets, but seem even, not just worn in certain places. A 'proper' fret crowning file seems like an absolute must, for the reasons you mention, so I guess that's step 1! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dem00n Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 Does anyone know how much a tech usually charges to do a crown and polish? $150? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quietly Posted March 28, 2010 Author Share Posted March 28, 2010 Quietly - thanks for a great step-by-step description. I've seen similar "how to's" before' date=' but your's is very good. I've been thinking about doing this job on my newly-acquired 70's Shergold Meteor (see here: http://guitar-collector.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=382 ). It's 35 years old and has very flat frets, but seem even, not just worn in certain places. A 'proper' fret crowning file seems like an absolute must, for the reasons you mention, so I guess that's step 1![/quote'] Looks good Paul and certainly easy to do on your Shergold which looks as though it needs it, well certainly a polish anyway. Glad it helped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
80LPC Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 I've been thinking about doing this job on my newly-acquired 70's Shergold Meteor. It's 35 years old and has very flat frets' date=' but seem even, not just worn in certain places.[/quote'] Red Paul, your frets will have most likely been filed before, and some wear is visible. Before leveling and crowning what you have, it might be worth measuring the fret height. A refret might be a better option. Preferences vary, but when frets wear to around 0.6 / 0.7 mm high I don't like the feel of the fretboard causing drag, and bending is more difficult since there is less leverage on the string. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Raff Posted April 6, 2010 Share Posted April 6, 2010 Quietly, I have a question. Which crown fret file did you use? Stew MAc shows two: Narrow/Medium and Medium/Wide. Excellant post! I have been considering crowning my LP frets for years. Now, I am ready to do it. Thanks, Rick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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