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This post concerns an issue raised by Chris Pile's "Fretless Wonder" mod, as described in viewtopic.php?p=689976#p689976 . Chris spends a huge amount of time filing the frets down as part of his strategy to achieve this incredibly low action.

Time for me to bend over and submit to yet another smackdown. So: this confuses me because my understanding has always been that first you make sure nut, neck, & bridge radius all match, then properly level & dress the frets, but this doesn't entail significantly altering the frets from factory height unless the factory did a bad job and those frets require massive sanding just to be properly leveled in the first place.

Ok, with the frets nicely leveled (but not massively a la Chris's Fretless Wonder), there are only 3 things involved in setting the action...
1. neck angle
2. height of the nut slots
3. height of the bridge
...and you adjust action by messing around with neck angle and nut/bridge heights.

Fret height doesn't enter into this mix. I have two books on setup and it's been awhile since I've consulted them but I don't recall either one mentioning reducing fret height solely as a strategy for getting lower action. By implication, then, it shouldn't matter whether frets are super-high or super-low or somewhere in between; you merely fiddle with the neck angle (if bolt-on) and cut lower nut slots (or shim the nut, or get a new nut with higher slots) or readjust bridge height (or individual saddle height) as needed.

But clearly my understanding isn't complete, as Chris's incredible money shots (sorry, couldn't resist) speak for themselves. What am I missing?

I don't think Chris' goal in his fretless wonder set ups is "low action" as much as he's going for a specific feel.

Action as I understand it is a product of the distance between the bottom of the string and the top of a fret (or fretboard in the case of a fretless instrument, and usually measured around the 17th fret on an electric guitar.) Regardless of whether or not you have .040" or .010" of fret height, if you have 4/64" of space between the bottom of the string and the fret you're using as a reference point you have the same action. That action will feel different depending on the size of the fret, but it is what it is.

The condition of the fret plane is an important consideration though, and will be a limiting factor in how low your action can be. The other big limiting factor for low action is the technique of the player. If you hit the guitar hard you'll never get a buzz free guitar.

When I inspect a guitar, and it is clear there is excessive fret wear from playing, or obvious uneven fretwork, this is where I start. None of the other measurements involved in setting up the guitar matter to me until I know what I'm dealing with regarding the frets. I'll make the fretboard as dead flat as I possibly can, then level and dress the frets. Once that is done, I will set the relief on the neck, then the action at the bridge (this step should also take care of the saddle radius), then address the string height at the nut, and once that's good I'll set the intonation.

As far as neck angle goes, I would only address this if I can't get any lower action out of my bridge/saddles. And this is only simply addressed on a bolt on guitar. Set necks are a much bigger deal.

Conor is correct. Fret height has little to do with true action (real world measurements).

Perception is a completely different thing. In this case - my clients THINK the action is lower because the frets are lower. I can't convince them otherwise. Back in the 80's I had a client who wanted all his guitars scalloped "for more sensitivity and ease of bending". I couldn't convince him jumbo frets yielded enough clearance to do this.

When he couldn't play the scalloped neck in tune, he realized his error (and my truth laughing in his face). Sometimes you have to give the public what they think they want and let them learn the hard way. Today he plays medium jumbos, around .040 high.

If they like it hard, give it to them hard and charge them hard prices. Be mean to them and grow rich (in theory).

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Thanks, guys. That's what I thought but Chris, you put so much danged work into filing those frets down that I figured I must be missing something. Glad you charge an appropriate rate for all that elbow grease!

Fret height, no, but fret leveling, yes. Though if memory serves, buzzing/rattling sounds different on super low frets vs. standard or tall frets. When the frets really get down there I think the buzzing/rattling might be closer to the fretless 'roar' than the clanking/rattling of the string against a tall fret.

As Chris said above, jumbo frets will give you more clearance. It is funny how people won't understand this and will demand unreasonable things, or misinterpret what actually makes the difference that they're saying they want.

As an avid player myself for over 18 years, I prefer .110" x .057" frets. Great feel. And I prefer stupidly low action on most of my guitars (.025" on the D, G, B and E strings, .034" on the A and .051" on the E, on my current main player -- with zero relief, or .002" tops). I don't meticulously set them that low as a rule but that's the general area I prefer them in. The fretwork has to be top notch for that to work, *and* you need a light touch. The guys that have a heavy hand and beat the strings up like they owe them money, and expect super low action with no buzzing -- that simply isn't gonna happen, and it isn't the tech's fault! Wish more people could be understanding and forgiving with that, but...it's a tough biz!

I balance it out by using .100" and .080" action on my Tele slide guitar, with .015 - .062 strings I have an extremely light touch when playing normally, but with a slide, I like using about the heaviest slide I can find and I have a pretty heavy hand with it. Funny how that works.

Wow, pretty low! What fretboard radius are you getting those numbers with? Any fall away?



Pat

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Pat

On the Strat I tested it on, I have a very significant amount of fallaway, and did a 7.25 to 16" radius. With the strings that low, I still need to do some fretwork, as I'm good on whole step bends, but up to about the 10th fret, if I bend over a whole step on the B and E, there are at least several frets that it starts choking out on. The fallaway in the upper register allows for about as much bending as I want from 10 to the end with no buzzing.

But those other areas need some work! I don't think it would take much leveling to correct those issues, but at that point it would be much closer to a flatter radius anyway. One of the issues I've been trying to attack, as I'm a huge fan of the 7.25" radius for the first third to half of the neck -- but by the time I get them leveled out, I doubt it sticks to that radius very well.

Super low action is certainly where things get complicated. I didn't even realize going beyond whole step bends were choking out on a few frets before writing this post! I do most of my really big bends higher up on the neck so I guess I never noticed it. In a perfect world you'd have complete freedom to bend as much as you want anywhere on the neck, with super low action -- but that's where I'm thinking there may be compromises to the radius that need to be made.

Always learning more, and open to learning more.

In addition to, or as an alternative to fallaway, I also like using smaller frets from 16 to the end. The frets are closer together and narrower frets seem to work nicely up there anyway. On this Strat I leveled some fallaway into the board as well as using frets that are .040" high instead of .057." So it's a bit extreme!

Interesting idea to use narrower Frets up high! Never thought about that, but that might buy a little more finger tip real estate.

Pat

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Pat