Replacing frets Do-it-yourself-how-to

[Zeppel]

Hi.. i've been getting real tired of guitar techs (no offense lol) and lately i've been trying to learn to do it all myself... so i'm now entering the dangerous territorie of fretwork.. i have the crummiest of guitars lying around and i'm thinking of trying it out on that one.. i've found a few nice posts here.. but no photos.. does anyone know of where i can get hold of photos of an actual fret change) "a la" ibanez rulez setup tips by Rich... a image is worth more than a thousand words !!

Thanks!

[moro]

There are a bunch of fretting tutorials on Project Guitar:

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/tutorial9.htm

[jem7vwh93]

Dan Earlwyne authored a guitar repair book. I learned some from that. There are many tricks and potential pitfalls. Practice a lot on a few different junk guitars before attempting one that you care about. Stew MacDonald sells tools that make it much easier. There's no substitute for a dremmel tool. Also try frets smaller than jumbo to start. They are easier to shape.

[darren wilson]

Where would you use a Dremel tool in a refret?

[kent k]

It depends a little on the method that you are using, but a dremel would commonly be used to clean the crap (old glue, wood dust, etc.) out of the fret slots after you've removed the old frets. It could also be used to resize the slots if the new wire has a bigger tang than the old frets.

[darren wilson]

I'd be more inclined to use razor blades and a fret saw (or a very fine Japanese dozuki) for those tasks... a Dremel in those operations seems risky to me. One little slip and you can seriously mangle a fret slot and/or the fretboard.

Refretting definitely takes some skill and patience to get really good results. But if you've got an old beater to practice on, i say go for it.

I am surprised at how often people seem to think they need to replace their frets, though. Frets should last a REALLY long time, even with very heavy play, unless they were really low to begin with (like Les Paul Custom low). You should be able to level and re-dress the frets at least a few times before you rip them out and start again.

[jem7vwh93]

I have bulk jumbo fret wire. When I cut it to size the ends need to be reshaped. You can get it really close to perfect with a dremmel before inserting into the slot. I never used a dremmel to slot frets and would recommend the fret saw. This should not be necessary on Ibanez necks because they usually have jumbo frets to start with.
Sometimes you can get away with replacing just the 1st 3 frets and dress the rest of them after. This saves a lot of work and keeps you from having to file all frets down to the level of the lowest fret.

[kent k]

All true, but you'll find a dremel is very handy to clean fret slots on a bound fretboard (if you don't want to take the binding off of course). I never said it's superior to a hand saw for unbound boards either, it's just commonly used that way. The fret slots hold the bit in line, so as long as the tool isn't going warp speed with a super sharp bit you won't lose control and mar the fingerboard or anything. Also, it should be said that you wouldn't hold the tool by hand, you'd use the router baseplate so that the slots stay a consistent depth.

Actually, I've done thousands of fret jobs, and usually I'll use a hand saw too. But when you run into a guitar that's had its frets glued in with epoxy or whatever, it's just a lot less work to use the dremel. Anyways, it works for me.