Nice job sir! I watched about 4 lfret leveling videos already and you are the first IMHO to do the leveling part right because you kept the beam in contact across all the frets. I think that is the only true way to stay in the same plane!
The best method I've found for fret end dressing is to use a fret end beveling block, a fret end dressing file, a Gurian 1/4 round file, a concave fret crowning file, and roll the edges with sandpaper to round the fret ends hemispherical. The best method I've found for polishing is a rotary tool, buffing wheel, and red paste rubbing compound.
Watching that rickety table move back and forth with each pass was cringe worthy...pop that nut outta there so you can sand those frets thoroughly, I hope it turned out level. You might want to do that kind of work on a sturdy bench or table of some kind. It will make sanding a lot more accurate. Get yourself a piece of marble threshold 2 inches wide or granite or the like. It is heavier and certainly flatter. If nothing else use it to flatten that milled spirit level. You would be surprised at what you think is flat, but isn’t. A thick long piece of float glass would do the trick as well. Anyways hope your frets turned out great...
Its a s[special table that allows me to find the resonant frequency and thus getting a faster sanding effect. Ok BS. yea I know its wobbly but cold in the Garage so used what I had when making this video. It did turn out great, was meant to show average Joe that just about any guy even with a dancing table can do the job. Keep Rockin.
@@winhauser5587 Sorry but the guys right about the rocking. And on that foam, as you push forward, the end will drop down and vice versa. Effectively 'bowing' that neck. But I AM behind you on encouraging lesser mortals to have a go themselves. Ive actually seen a guy attempt to remove his frets and neck overlay en masse, using a steam iron and a blunt chisel on the living room rug. I had trouble driving home laughing!
Dude those frets look beautiful man thanks so much for this tutiorial. How risky would you say this process is I want to do it to my expensive Jackson but I’m kinda scared.
As someone who does fretwork for a living, I have to tell you that it's a very risky job. If you mess up, there's no going back and you'll probably have to pay a luthier to refret the whole neck. So, no. Don't try this on your expensive Jackson. What I used to do when I was first starting out was get hold of junked guitars or just necks. I would practice on those necks until I was good enough to tackle fretwork on customers' guitars. Another effective way is to get an informal apprenticeship with the nearest good luthier you can find. Just make friends, help out with any odd jobs such as sweeping the floor or taking out the trash. The idea is that you'll be able to watch the luthier at work and learn first-hand. Give it a try...
Don't be scared you are only taking off a few thousandths of an inch. Jusy level until the sharpie is gone from the frets. Unless you have serious issues taking off a few thousandths can be done many times.
My guitar has dings in them from hours of playing. Would I be able to file down the divots with your method? I assume glue or tape sandpaper to the bottom of the carpenters level What gauge sand paper would one use? Thanks for the great video.
Finding a perfectly straight level is key. You can buy adhesive sandpaper in rolls. I use 220 grit. You have to do the whole fingerboard not just a few frets. The high spots will contact the paper and sand first. Make sure to use a sharpie on each fret this way you can see which ones are contacting the paper and getting leveled. Don't take off anymore then when the sharpie is sanded off. Finish and restring. You can always tweak it again if you want to adjust further. If the dings are to deep you don't want to sand everything down to that level. You would have to get a pro to replace the damaged ftet.
@@winhauser5587 I have not yet got around to sanding the frets but am now real close to doing it. I watched your video again and it is an excellent video. Thanks for your reply and info.
Most of the time you need to put in new frets for the ones that have divots if the divots are deep. If the divots aren't too deep you can sand the whole fretboard until all the frets are as low as the bottom of the divots but you want to take the least off as possible.
@@joeking433 I just did the fret leveling two days ago and when I was done there were still a few small divots where the D string goes. I decided that I was not going to go any deeper and left it at that and to my surprise all is good now as even the small left over divots are not causing yet any string buzz. Never thought of it but just replace the real bad frets as I was thinking of every fret. And the new frets would just have to be filed down till they are all the same height as the older ones. Thanks for all of your info and video.
You start with a 220 grit to do the leveling with the straight edge and polish with 400 to 3000 grits, more passes with the finer grits to really polish out the fine lines the paper makes, kind of like a car finish
I did a fret leaving job on my Ibanez and now the action is even worse, I have so little patience, literally about to throw the damn thing in the trash
Every guitar is worth saving, if the skills just are not there there are plenty of guitar techs out there that will do the whole setup for $100. I've been woodworking since i was 5 and am an artist so its comes easy to me. Good luck.
Action isn’t really related to fret leveling. Level frets just allow you to set your action lower. For action, start with neck relief, nut height and saddle height. If that can’t get you there, might have to look at changing the neck angle with a shim. Good luck.
You have to have a LOT of patience! The important thing is that after you level the frets you use a fret rocker to check for high frets. You'll think that it should be level but there are ALWAYS high frets after you level for some reason. So you do a complete level again, or might get away with spot leveling just that high fret. It's VERY precise and HARD to get super low action! The higher action you can handle the less problems you will have , LOL! I'm obsessed with getting low action and it's really hard to do!
I have ibenez too bud,and just done a leveling job,and I think I've made it worse too haha,my frets I think are way to low now but I'll put it back together see what happens maybe ibenez are just shite mate haha,it was telling me I had high frets I leveld them still had high frets so I kept doing it about 5 times what a nightmare and now i have little fretts now and still saying i have high frets i dont understand this! I'm losing patience now the crowning is perfect but leveling is a nightmare
@@paulyoung4781 One important thing is that you have to get the fretboard flat. If you level the frets when you didn't adjust the truss rod to make the fretboard flat you can really mess up the frets and it will buzz and fret out and such.
not sure what a 2017 mim is but if 2 frets are lower then the rest they all have to come down to that level, hopefully 10 thousandths or less, you probably cant sand everything down 1/16". Put sharpie on the frets and sand until the high spots are gone. rinse and repeat if necessary.
Most guitars out of the box will have uneven frets. I bought a Mighty Mite neck, it was the worst I've ever seen, for example. I just bought an Ibanez Art-Core semi-hollow body, it had roller coaster frets, LOL! I bought a new Squier Mustang, a lot of really high frets. I recently bought some cheap Firefly guitars and some Indio guitars, they were actually really good! Maybe one or two slightly high frets but you only would notice if you lowered the action a lot. Some guitar brands Plek their guitars now. A Plek machine levels frets to the thousandth of an inch and gives good level frets. Gibson Pleks all their guitars now so I doubt you will find a high fret but it's also hard to do perfectly because wood moves with humidity and temperature. The best guitars I've ever had with low action that weren't Plek'd are used guitars that people gigged with. They always pay to have them set up and have fretwork done.
I have used 120 for initial levelling followed by 240 and then 320. Otherwise you'll be there for a month of Sundays levelling the frets, particularly if the initial fret level is bad. I have three levelling beams for this purpose.
You can always start with a finer paper, depends on how much you have to take off. 220 gets you there faster and you will use 329, 400, 600, 800, 1200, 2000, 3000 in succession to get smoother and smother. You can even use a leather strap at the end with some rubbing compound you you want a mirror finish
You can get a perfectly flat leveling bbeam like Hauser uses from any good hardware store. Or you could buy hollow rectangular aluminium wiring conduits and saw them to 18" lengths. That's what I use. They are 2"x 1" which is perfect for fret leveling. None of these come with sandpaper. If you're in the US, you can easily buy Stikit sandpaper which has a self-adhesive backing. It's available at StewMac. Just peel off the protective layer and stick an 18" long strip to the 1" wide side of your beam. If the sandpaper is too wide, trim it with an Xacto blade. Alternatively, you can do what I do. Stick an 18" long strip of masking tape to the 1" wide side of your beam. Then stick paper-thin double stick tape on top of the masking tape. This will make it easy to pull off the double stick tape when you need to change your sandpaper. Paper thin double stick tape, NOT the one with a thin foam layer! Then press the beam against the smooth side of your sandpaper until it's secure. The sandpaper sheet will probably be wider than the 1" width of your beam. Use an Xacto blade to cut along the left and right edges of your beam. Lift up the beam, and you'll have your own DIY sanding beam. When you have to change sandpaper, pull off the masking tape. As the masking tape comes off, so will the double stick tape and worn out strip of sandpaper. Attach a new strip of masking tape, double stick tape and sandpaper, and you're good to go once again. Works like a charm, and cheap too. Best of luck 👍
fret. From harbor freight and adhesive paper on roll from Amazon. Stewart mcdonald as a leveling bar but its like $50. It has to be milled and perfectly straight within a few thousandths. Just take off a fee thousandths finish the frets and restring. I have done some guitars several times to really dial it in.
Unless you are a person who plays like a semi-pro or pro, your guitar should not need any fretwork for 20+ years, if ever. Also, if you are a player who uses few bends and vibrato, then there should be no gouges in the fretwires because they are caused by pressing on the strings in one spot continuously and bends/vibrato help prevent them.
@@Francisco-Danconia, fretwires. Frets are the spaces of fretboard between the wires. Hence the terms fretboard and fretmarkers. Just because uneducated colloquial use makes a claim they are correct, they are not. I stated they SHOULD not need levelling for 20+ years if played by non-pros. Estimate 10 years for a less expensive guitar. Many brand-new, even expensive, instruments with fretwires MAY require levelling as part of an initial setup. Sad but true.
The first thing a beginner should should do is take a brand new guitar with those modern tall frets to a luthier and ask him either to refret that crap or level to a vintage height. It makes playing easier as is should be l, there is not such thing as player preference ...
00:34 "I got it at the hardware store for 15$....You have to find something that has precision,, not just a cheap level..." Lol,,, 15 dollars is cheap!
What model Epiphone is that Win? Thanks for your tips, much appreciated. I recently bought an Epiphone G 310 and I plan on doing some upgrade work, it plays really well but there is some fret buzz and I find the tone is a little muddy. Any tips on some replacement pickups? I would like a brighter sound and I reckon some new pots are needed also. Thanks again. I really like the colour of the guitar in this video. The one I have is all black.
The guitar is an epi sg pro. I dont like epi pickups these had alnico 5 magnets and sounded harsh. I disassembled the pickups and replaced the magnets with alnico 2. Sounds better. This is tricky however, if you want to mod your pickups i just put in a sd alnico 2 pro in another guitar and am failry happy, but i think i will try the alnico 2 slash next as it has a bit more mid range. Dimarzio has some great pups and a nice website for evaluating the sound. These are my next replacements. I have many guitars so am upgrading most of them
Nice job sir! I watched about 4 lfret leveling videos already and you are the first IMHO to do the leveling part right because you kept the beam in contact across all the frets. I think that is the only true way to stay in the same plane!
The best method I've found for fret end dressing is to use a fret end beveling block, a fret end dressing file, a Gurian 1/4 round file, a concave fret crowning file, and roll the edges with sandpaper to round the fret ends hemispherical.
The best method I've found for polishing is a rotary tool, buffing wheel, and red paste rubbing compound.
Flater radius such as Gibson allows for a more low action. Try this on a 7,25 and 9.50 radius strat and probably doesn't work.
Makes all the difference in the world.. Have you done Stainless frets I'm wondering? If so, what coarseness of sand paper did you or would you use?
I would use the same same paper grits starting at 220 and ending at 3000, more passes with the finer grits,
Watching that rickety table move back and forth with each pass was cringe worthy...pop that nut outta there so you can sand those frets thoroughly, I hope it turned out level. You might want to do that kind of work on a sturdy bench or table of some kind. It will make sanding a lot more accurate. Get yourself a piece of marble threshold 2 inches wide or granite or the like. It is heavier and certainly flatter. If nothing else use it to flatten that milled spirit level. You would be surprised at what you think is flat, but isn’t. A thick long piece of float glass would do the trick as well. Anyways hope your frets turned out great...
Its a s[special table that allows me to find the resonant frequency and thus getting a faster sanding effect. Ok BS. yea I know its wobbly but cold in the Garage so used what I had when making this video. It did turn out great, was meant to show average Joe that just about any guy even with a dancing table can do the job. Keep Rockin.
@@winhauser5587 Sorry but the guys right about the rocking. And on that foam, as you push forward, the end will drop down and vice versa. Effectively 'bowing' that neck.
But I AM behind you on encouraging lesser mortals to have a go themselves. Ive actually seen a guy attempt to remove his frets and neck overlay en masse, using a steam iron and a blunt chisel on the living room rug. I had trouble driving home laughing!
Dude those frets look beautiful man thanks so much for this tutiorial. How risky would you say this process is I want to do it to my expensive Jackson but I’m kinda scared.
As someone who does fretwork for a living, I have to tell you that it's a very risky job. If you mess up, there's no going back and you'll probably have to pay a luthier to refret the whole neck. So, no. Don't try this on your expensive Jackson.
What I used to do when I was first starting out was get hold of junked guitars or just necks. I would practice on those necks until I was good enough to tackle fretwork on customers' guitars.
Another effective way is to get an informal apprenticeship with the nearest good luthier you can find. Just make friends, help out with any odd jobs such as sweeping the floor or taking out the trash. The idea is that you'll be able to watch the luthier at work and learn first-hand. Give it a try...
Don't be scared you are only taking off a few thousandths of an inch. Jusy level until the sharpie is gone from the frets. Unless you have serious issues taking off a few thousandths can be done many times.
@@bluesguy62 Sound advice 👌 ♥
@@HighVybeTribe Thank you, Bobcat.
@@bluesguy62 Would this affect nut height? Thanks
12:40 - liked this idea!
My guitar has dings in them from hours of playing. Would I be able to file down the divots with your method? I assume glue or tape sandpaper to the bottom of the carpenters level What gauge sand paper would one use? Thanks for the great video.
Finding a perfectly straight level is key. You can buy adhesive sandpaper in rolls. I use 220 grit. You have to do the whole fingerboard not just a few frets. The high spots will contact the paper and sand first. Make sure to use a sharpie on each fret this way you can see which ones are contacting the paper and getting leveled. Don't take off anymore then when the sharpie is sanded off. Finish and restring. You can always tweak it again if you want to adjust further. If the dings are to deep you don't want to sand everything down to that level. You would have to get a pro to replace the damaged ftet.
@@winhauser5587 I have not yet got around to sanding the frets but am now real close to doing it. I watched your video again and it is an excellent video. Thanks for your reply and info.
Most of the time you need to put in new frets for the ones that have divots if the divots are deep. If the divots aren't too deep you can sand the whole fretboard until all the frets are as low as the bottom of the divots but you want to take the least off as possible.
@@joeking433 I just did the fret leveling two days ago and when I was done there were still a few small divots where the D string goes. I decided that I was not going to go any deeper and left it at that and to my surprise all is good now as even the small left over divots are not causing yet any string buzz.
Never thought of it but just replace the real bad frets as I was thinking of every fret. And the new frets would just have to be filed down till they are all the same height as the older ones. Thanks for all of your info and video.
You start with a 220 grit to do the leveling with the straight edge and polish with 400 to 3000 grits, more passes with the finer grits to really polish out the fine lines the paper makes, kind of like a car finish
Fretwire is the proper technical term
I did a fret leaving job on my Ibanez and now the action is even worse, I have so little patience, literally about to throw the damn thing in the trash
Every guitar is worth saving, if the skills just are not there there are plenty of guitar techs out there that will do the whole setup for $100. I've been woodworking since i was 5 and am an artist so its comes easy to me. Good luck.
Action isn’t really related to fret leveling. Level frets just allow you to set your action lower. For action, start with neck relief, nut height and saddle height. If that can’t get you there, might have to look at changing the neck angle with a shim. Good luck.
You have to have a LOT of patience! The important thing is that after you level the frets you use a fret rocker to check for high frets. You'll think that it should be level but there are ALWAYS high frets after you level for some reason. So you do a complete level again, or might get away with spot leveling just that high fret. It's VERY precise and HARD to get super low action! The higher action you can handle the less problems you will have , LOL! I'm obsessed with getting low action and it's really hard to do!
I have ibenez too bud,and just done a leveling job,and I think I've made it worse too haha,my frets I think are way to low now but I'll put it back together see what happens maybe ibenez are just shite mate haha,it was telling me I had high frets I leveld them still had high frets so I kept doing it about 5 times what a nightmare and now i have little fretts now and still saying i have high frets i dont understand this! I'm losing patience now the crowning is perfect but leveling is a nightmare
@@paulyoung4781 One important thing is that you have to get the fretboard flat. If you level the frets when you didn't adjust the truss rod to make the fretboard flat you can really mess up the frets and it will buzz and fret out and such.
i got a 2017 mim which i would of thought would be pretty level but 2 and 4 are much lower than rest
not sure what a 2017 mim is but if 2 frets are lower then the rest they all have to come down to that level, hopefully 10 thousandths or less, you probably cant sand everything down 1/16". Put sharpie on the frets and sand until the high spots are gone. rinse and repeat if necessary.
Every MIM guitar I've ever owned had unlevel frets. The American Fenders are much better in that respect.
Most guitars out of the box will have uneven frets. I bought a Mighty Mite neck, it was the worst I've ever seen, for example. I just bought an Ibanez Art-Core semi-hollow body, it had roller coaster frets, LOL! I bought a new Squier Mustang, a lot of really high frets. I recently bought some cheap Firefly guitars and some Indio guitars, they were actually really good! Maybe one or two slightly high frets but you only would notice if you lowered the action a lot. Some guitar brands Plek their guitars now. A Plek machine levels frets to the thousandth of an inch and gives good level frets. Gibson Pleks all their guitars now so I doubt you will find a high fret but it's also hard to do perfectly because wood moves with humidity and temperature. The best guitars I've ever had with low action that weren't Plek'd are used guitars that people gigged with. They always pay to have them set up and have fretwork done.
220 seems a bit too rough do you think 320 might be safer? Also because of scratch marks
I have used 120 for initial levelling followed by 240 and then 320. Otherwise you'll be there for a month of Sundays levelling the frets, particularly if the initial fret level is bad. I have three levelling beams for this purpose.
You can always start with a finer paper, depends on how much you have to take off. 220 gets you there faster and you will use 329, 400, 600, 800, 1200, 2000, 3000 in succession to get smoother and smother. You can even use a leather strap at the end with some rubbing compound you you want a mirror finish
Where did you get you’re beam with the sandpaper on it?
You can get a perfectly flat leveling bbeam like Hauser uses from any good hardware store. Or you could buy hollow rectangular aluminium wiring conduits and saw them to 18" lengths. That's what I use. They are 2"x 1" which is perfect for fret leveling.
None of these come with sandpaper. If you're in the US, you can easily buy Stikit sandpaper which has a self-adhesive backing. It's available at StewMac. Just peel off the protective layer and stick an 18" long strip to the 1" wide side of your beam. If the sandpaper is too wide, trim it with an Xacto blade.
Alternatively, you can do what I do. Stick an 18" long strip of masking tape to the 1" wide side of your beam. Then stick paper-thin double stick tape on top of the masking tape. This will make it easy to pull off the double stick tape when you need to change your sandpaper. Paper thin double stick tape, NOT the one with a thin foam layer!
Then press the beam against the smooth side of your sandpaper until it's secure. The sandpaper sheet will probably be wider than the 1" width of your beam. Use an Xacto blade to cut along the left and right edges of your beam.
Lift up the beam, and you'll have your own DIY sanding beam. When you have to change sandpaper, pull off the masking tape. As the masking tape comes off, so will the double stick tape and worn out strip of sandpaper.
Attach a new strip of masking tape, double stick tape and sandpaper, and you're good to go once again.
Works like a charm, and cheap too. Best of luck 👍
fret. From harbor freight and adhesive paper on roll from Amazon. Stewart mcdonald as a leveling bar but its like $50. It has to be milled and perfectly straight within a few thousandths. Just take off a fee thousandths finish the frets and restring. I have done some guitars several times to really dial it in.
@@winhauser5587 I have found this myself, done the best levelling possible and then needed to do it all over again for best results.
@@bluesguy62 Great tips espesh' the masking tape under the thin double-sided tape. Cheers!
@@Bazonthebass Thanks. I learned that from a Ben Crowe video.
Unless you are a person who plays like a semi-pro or pro, your guitar should not need any fretwork for 20+ years, if ever. Also, if you are a player who uses few bends and vibrato, then there should be no gouges in the fretwires because they are caused by pressing on the strings in one spot continuously and bends/vibrato help prevent them.
This is absolutely untrue. Even expensive brand name guitars can have crap frets with high spots.
@@Francisco-Danconia, fretwires. Frets are the spaces of fretboard between the wires. Hence the terms fretboard and fretmarkers. Just because uneducated colloquial use makes a claim they are correct, they are not. I stated they SHOULD not need levelling for 20+ years if played by non-pros. Estimate 10 years for a less expensive guitar. Many brand-new, even expensive, instruments with fretwires MAY require levelling as part of an initial setup. Sad but true.
The first thing a beginner should should do is take a brand new guitar with those modern tall frets to a luthier and ask him either to refret that crap or level to a vintage height. It makes playing easier as is should be l, there is not such thing as player preference ...
@@KaptainCanuck You're autistic, mate.
00:34 "I got it at the hardware store for 15$....You have to find something that has precision,, not just a cheap level..."
Lol,,, 15 dollars is cheap!
I like your luthier tools... Some real Afro engineering right there.
I don't think the Africans invented anything like a level, even 2,000 years after the ancient Greeks were calculating the circumference of the globe.
Let me know if there are any questions, I have been making customer guitars for about 35 yrs. I can answer most any guitar tech question.
What model Epiphone is that Win? Thanks for your tips, much appreciated. I recently bought an Epiphone G 310 and I plan on doing some upgrade work, it plays really well but there is some fret buzz and I find the tone is a little muddy. Any tips on some replacement pickups? I would like a brighter sound and I reckon some new pots are needed also. Thanks again. I really like the colour of the guitar in this video. The one I have is all black.
What about creating "fall away"after the 12th frets of your neck? To make the action super low at the bottom of the fretboard.
The guitar is an epi sg pro. I dont like epi pickups these had alnico 5 magnets and sounded harsh. I disassembled the pickups and replaced the magnets with alnico 2. Sounds better. This is tricky however, if you want to mod your pickups i just put in a sd alnico 2 pro in another guitar and am failry happy, but i think i will try the alnico 2 slash next as it has a bit more mid range. Dimarzio has some great pups and a nice website for evaluating the sound. These are my next replacements. I have many guitars so am upgrading most of them