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Hi folks,

I want to change the angle of the bevel on fret ends for my latest. I tried it at 10deg and I don’t like how it feels. I use a home made bevel block that has angles from 5deg to 25deg. I’m thinking 20.

Question is, I should be able to do this without messing up the fret tops / fret plane I think. I do the folded sandpaper, then gray and white scotchbrite, up and down the fretboard to get tooling marks out, so I would need to just stay off the fret tops and focus on the ends.

Should be fine, right?


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Could you throw a few strips of masking tape on the frets?

You'll still need to clean up the ends, shouldn't take too much time.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I reshape fret ends on existing existing guitars all of the time. It's necessary when fret sprout occurs and the things dry out in Michigan winters.

We charge more for it too and it's a service all it's own.

The small files Brad that we showed you guys in class to take the ends back is your go to tool and you can bevel in any degree of angle you want by hand with one of these. You take the ends back and create the bevel you want and then you take the fangs and such out with a StewMac fret end file and if you remember Dave zipping along with the three corner that's near the last step.

Neither Dave or I use any jig for the angle it's free form done by hand. As we hold the files some of our fingers are on the neck as guides to ensure the angle remains the same as we move up and down the neck. It goes very quickly and 5 minutes is more than enough time to instill the new bevel angle. Takes more time to do the ends after that.

Then I hit the ends with 320 quad folded with some quick passes over the entire side and it's done.

I never touch the fret tops and if you glued the frets well they should stay in place.

Remember that fret file with BRW handle that I may have loaned you when you were here that I use started life as an OOOO file and then we purposely dulled it on brass and such until it bites fret ends but skates on top of finish and does not take the finish off.

If you want I'll take a pic of mine Monday when I am back in the shop?

For others as you run your fingers along the fret ends they should be flush and not something that you can feel at all from the side of the neck. The nut should be this way too, the nut ends should be flush so that a blind person would not even know the nut was there the feel should blend this perfectly.

Anyway if the ends are flush and the bevel angle is minimal, certainly not the 35 - 45 degrees we see on some factory guitars that additional top surface is desirable to many of the better players.

I don't know what the angle is that we work to it's free form but more than 10 degrees I would suspect but not much more we like fret top surface and have never had anyone want more bevel angle. We do get complaints from people who want less such as the "weekend wedding greaseball player" example I write about here at times.

20 degrees sounds good, so does 15 degrees.

I'll post a pic next week on my files.

My go to is 15 degrees. For some players, the extra fret length although small, is noticeable.

20 and 15 are both TOTALLY WRONG - 18 degrees is optimal or 17.5 on a classical guitar. Flamencos should always be unbeveled and left unfiled straight off the nippers - the lacerations aid in properly emoting the heartbroken lyrics











(Kidding folks)

I think we are around 15 degrees too again it's done by look and feel so I don't know exactly. But we have had specific requests for less bevel from gigging musicians including two who had had refrets elsewhere and wanted to pay to have it done all over again AND they fell out with the shop that did the original fret work because of over beveling and lack of fret top surface.

Wanted to bring up that it's also at times guitar dependent. Lots of guitars in the Fender world with the strings too close to the treble side and a neck pocket with the slop already maxed out to favor moving the strings away from the treble side. More top surface on these can save the day.

Of course, this all goes out the window when refretting a Gibson and the client wants you to leave the nibs....

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Hey Hesh,

Living up North as you know I do this all the as well on over-dry guitars with fret sprout.

I’d very much like to see a pic of this modified file you're using…

Have a nice day my friend!


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

[FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY]


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

OMG not the nibs..... We don't do no stinkin nibs.

Will do tomorrow I'll take some pics have three to do tomorrow morning. Wanted to talk to you about your selection criteria too for R8, R9, R0 axes one's on my list, dang it... I very nearly bought an R9 that is in great shape but had reliced hardware. I was going to toss all that stuff (not really but keep it and replace it with my favorite stuff like ThroBak pups, etc) because I hate the relic look. Someone beat me to it and it was a heavy one too so maybe a good thing. Anyway will have some questions for you since you went though the same process with your's. Hope you're doing great bro.

I did that once on my own Les Paul. Oof, never again. But still kinda worth it in a weird way.

You want a refret that keeps the nibs??? Time to drop the needle on my shop theme song