Arlington Fret Works

This Epiphone Broadway had been re-fretted once before, but the neither the fretboard nor frets had been leveled. The result was nice tall new frets but a wavy fretboard with lots of humps and valleys. The action had to be raised very high so the strings wouldn't buzz. 

The only way to get the fingerboard level would be to remove the frets and start over. Instead, we decided to level just the frets and leave the board wavy. The upper frets on the bass side would need to be sanded extremely low, but the owner said he never played the up there anyway.

First task is to get the neck straight.  The heavy jazz strings (13 s) had pulled the neck into an up bow, and the truss rod nut was cranked down so tight I couldn't turn it any further to straighten the neck. I didn't try cranking it hard because they can break, and there's a much safer solution:

First I slacken the strings, then clamp the neck into a slight back bow. I remove the nut, clean and grease it, then put it back in and tightened it.  The clamp does all the work, and the nut just holds the truss rod in position. Because of the back bow, when the strings are tuned back to pitch any further adjustments can be made by loosening the truss rod nut, not tightening it.

On to the neck jig. This jig uses a strap and jack at the peg head to re-create the stresses of string tension after the strings have been removed. I adjust the truss rod to get the neck as straight as possible with the strings on.  Then I set the dial indicators to zero, remove the strings, and adjust the strap and jack until the indicators read zero again.  Now the neck is straight, and the truss rod is still tightened,  so there will be no horribly frustrating surprises when the strings go back on later.

The strings are off and the jack and strap are set. Next the four support rods go up to keep the neck perfectly flat during leveling.

I mark the tops of the frets with a festive color so I can see how the sanding is coming along.

I start with 240 grit, and keep checking the marks carefully.  When all the color is gone the frets are level.

I mark the frets again and use a radius block to make sure each fret has the original radius. Just a light touch with 320 grit and 400 grit will do it.

Looking good.

The frets that had to be sanded lower now have flat tops. I can't just leave these because flat frets won't play in tune. Time to crown them with a crowning file. I mark them again and round the tops until each fret is left with just a thin line of color in the center.  If I took off all the color I'd be changing the heights and have to start all over!  

The small lines of color are still flat areas, but are easily rounded over with my finger and sandpaper.  I run up and down the neck lengthwise bouncing over all the frets equally, first with 600 grit, then 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, then Micro-mesh up to 12,000 grit to polish them. The blue tape just makes clean up a lot easier ... the fine dust is like soot.

Nice. Cleaned, oiled, and ready for new strings and a set up.  

Now the action can be lowered to a comfortable level, ready to get back on the bandstand. (This guitar belongs to the guitarist and music director for the local big band Swing Shift.)                                   http://www.swingshiftdc.com/ 

Here's a modern Martin guitar that had some buzz around the 9th fret. Adjusting the truss rod couldn't get rid of the slight hump in the neck around frets 12 to 14. There was plenty of metal in them, so I could remove enough to get the frets level even if the wood was not.  The end result was low action, for an acoustic, and no buzz.

First I set the dials with the strings on and the neck adjusted as straight as possible:

Then remove the strings and use the peghead strap and band to get the dials back to zero. Now the neck is straight and the truss rod is still in playing position:

Raise the support bars, then level the frets, crown and polish: