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I was looking for a long piece of 320 paper to adhere to my straight bar for leveling frets. Didn't want to order since I don't need anything else and I'd have to wait for it. I found some 16" long 320 grit at Harbor Freight. Didn't realize until I got home that it's for hook and loop. Do you think it will work glued to a hard bar, or is the soft back going to be too much of a cushion for leveling frets?

Yes, too soft.

I've never had a problem with using standard size sandpaper. Spray adhesive and butt joints works fine if done carefully.

+1 Not as pretty but seems to work fine.

That's what I thought, I just needed to hear it from someone else, so I'll just but joint some standard size.
Thanks, Wendy

+1 to what Greg said.

The primary goal of leveling frets is to introduce a level of precision to the fret plane so that if low action is desired it's achievable AND so that all notes ring loud and true.

Add .10" worth of padding to your leveling beam and all bets are off.

We've never tested sand paper before but I have often wondered about the consistency of the thickness of commercial sandpapers and if there is a lot of error and defects in the manufacturing process. Seems like it would be easy to find out.

We played around with some machinist papers before but maybe it's time to test the 3M and other stuff out there in the grits that we use.

Wendy self stick which is available in sheets too at big box stores should work way better than hook and loop. Since you need it longer than it comes butting the ends of a couple of pieces would be fine likely too. Just don't overlap the paper and perhaps turn the leveling beam around several or more time in the leveling process.

If you need to change paper naphtha takes the sticky stuff off well. Also if you use progressively finer grits while leveling moving up to 220 - 240 it's way easier to sand the scratches out from the fret tops.

I keep rolls of Stikit sandpaper in several grits. Super handy stuff. Without it, I would just use regular sandpaper stuck to double-stick tape, butt jointed to make whatever length is needed.

Yeah, the 3m Stikit is awesome. I stick it on everything but the dog.
I agree with Mr. Hesh: paper thickness probably varies more than the bar's flatness tolerance.

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+1

3M gold is what I use it comes in 45 yard rolls and is 2 3/4" long . It is a much higher quality paper than most others and doesn't shed grit like a lot of other paper. You will pay more for it but when sandpaper sheds grit you end up with scratch marks and the paper will not last as long. It also has a much better adhesive so you won't have the hassle of trying to remove it from your sanding block

The last time I bought some I used this site. A bit less expensive than my local Auto-body supplier

http://directbuyautobodysupply.com/AWSCategories/p/49/PSA-Stick-Continous-Roll-Sandpaper

Bob

Even a perfectly flat bar with perfectly uniform sandpaper won't automatically create level frets. Once you've scuffed the tops of all the frets, go back and measure with a good machinists straightedge and a .001" feeler gauge. You may be surprised at what you find. I don't suppose it matters why this is true. My theory is that as the high frets are cut down, their surface area becomes larger, and the local psi of the sandpaper is reduced. You notice the effect the most when trying to level a very uneven, poorly fretted fingerboard.

Very true and I'll add to your list how and where the instrument is supported for the process too. Gravity is a force to be reckoned with as well. Hence the Earlywine neck jig.

However when one has an understanding of some of the things that machinists learn to optimize precision and uses these techniques accuracy of .0005" with manual methods is achievable without much in the way of unnatural acts required. We've already discussed when a very high level of accuracy is required and the benefits to the players are real and realized and admittedly not everyone benefits.

There is a point called "good enough" problem is that that point has about as many definitions as there are participants in the discussion.

My personal observation is however that most builders and all f*ctories that I have experience with their wares that good enough point is often not good enough and that's why people pay us to make it better.

I'll also add that how one polishes as well is a factor impacting accuracy of the fret plane. Though likely minuscule traditional sanding of frets or even a high-tech approach that we use still removes material and material removal introduces inaccuracies.

Let's remember too that most of the time the necks are wood - wood moves RH (relative humidity not rectal hydration....) changes can put a neck in back bow and often does.

I want to be perfectly clear why I even care. For some folks high levels of fret plane accuracy may not matter for the intended use of the instrument. But again there is that grease ball, weekend wedding player who wants action of 2 - 3 (64th" measured at the 12th) who knows what he wants, has experienced it prior, and wants to get back there. He's right that it's obtainable and if this is what flips his switch so be it with the only thing remaining is who's willing to step-up knowing from first hand experience that they can get him where he wants and needs to go. That was a rhetorical question not a roll call....

Lutherie seems to be a snake oil magnet - an understatement. From $20 caps for electrics to genuine fossilized Mastiff turd some folks believe in what they believe for what ever reason(s). Much of the snake oil or subjective topics in the trade are not measurable or quantifiable such as the thread about differences in Sitka and Adi.

Fortunately fret plane precision can be measured, fret spacing too...., which by the very nature of being measurable makes the pursuit of precision not only not snake oil and instead very much quantifiable and it also makes it a worthy goal for me personally.

Folks benefit from great fret work. It's the GUI (graphical user interface) of the guitar set-up world or the "user interface" and experienced first hand (pardon the unintended pun...) every single time a musician plays the thing. As such it's important and important to get it right.

Thinking back here and pardon me again for being long winded but these post only take me a few minutes to do being no stranger to writing here... After about 20 instruments and no complaints I decided that my set-ups could likely be better. So I sought out an apprenticeship that initially by my request was only focused on learning to set-up my stuff.

Truth be told what I thought was pretty good work on my part sucked.... My nut slots were way too high, the fret work was fine with no buzzing but if I had to push the action into low territory there were issues. My fret ends sucked and even the boards that I was fretting off the instrument although flat and true didn't remain that way when mated to a neck.... Fall-away you say - what the heck is that was my answer back then and why might it matter.

Funny thing has been happening along the way in my own very personal Lutherie journey and that is what ever goal I made for myself, and I am a guy who makes goals every single day, if I thought that I reached that goal I also had gained enough additional understanding to learn that my initial goal was not good enough and why it was not good enough.

My only regret is that I entered this trade in my 50's now thinking that I will not have enough time to get to where I want to be (if that doesn't change too....).

So I know that some of you guys (meaning men and women) can be pretty proud of your accomplishments to date and you most certainly should be - my hat's off to coming from Mr. annoyingly encouraging here.... I would however hope to suggest to you that there are higher levels of precision available to you without PLEKs, expensive tools, etc. and it all starts with getting out of the vacuum of a solitary shop and seeing and learning what others do and why.

What was this thread about, sandpaper.... sorry Wendy, sometimes I can't shut up....

Which is why I don't bother levelling all the frets, only the frets or sections of the frets that require it. If the actual board is truly flat you should be able to insert frets (glued or hammered) which require minmal levelling. The very best I've done is spot levelling on 3 frets out of the entire board. A tiny section on each of those 3 frets. Normally it involves 2 or 3 times that amount. Still, a lot less than levelling each and every fret.

So I'll throw another sandpaper question out there. What grit do you usually use initially to level frets? I've seen instructions anywhere from starting with 120, to starting with 320. So what's the consensus?

Sorry Michael, I must have been typing while you were. Unfortunately my fretting skills are still poor enough that I assume I will have to level all or most. I certainly will check though before I do it.

Wendy my favorite leveling beam, we have about 15 of them.... has 120 3M Gold on one side and 220 3M Gold on the other side.

I mark the fret tops with magic marker (but not if it's a maple board with lacquer...) and then hit the thing with 220 first. I want to see where I am hitting and adjust the truss rod accordingly to hit everywhere uniformly or conversely if the neck has problems I may want to reshape the fret plane too, more on this in a minute.

After seeing where I am hitting and making adjustments to hit where I want to hit if it is a fret dress on an instrument that say the builder never really leveled anything.... but instead spot hit only the individual frets that they perceived a rock with the fret rocker I start with 120 knowing as I do that there will be some material removal from lots of places.

If it's a newly built neck recently fretted and if it was fretted correctly meaning on the guitar not the board off the neck... often 220 and only a very few passes will uniformly hit everywhere I want to hit. At times after a refret the leveling can only take 2 minutes or so with only 220 if the thing was built well.

Regardless the idea is if you have lots of material to remove I use 120 and then once I achieve level I move to 220 remarking and taking all of the bluing (magic marker) off again. I like finishing up with 220 in that it makes removing the scratches from the 120 a non-issue.

You can go to higher grits in pursuit of greater precision but unless the player is that grease ball I spoke of it's....... drum roll please...... good enough.

Then quad folding progressively finer grits of sand paper and holding the sand paper like that playing card clothes pinned to your bike hitting the spokes we sand the frets paying particular attention to the sides and the scratches from the crowning files. When not using a machine that David Collins made for polishing frets I start with 220 moving to 320, 400, 600, 800, and then OOOO steel wool. When using our machine I only use 320 and then take it to the "fret buffer." In either case I finish up with OOOO steel wool.

Regarding some options that you have. Let's face it we want less relief on the treble side and more on the bass side. For most builders it's a toss up what they will get, f*ctories too... This makes the likelihood of having the reverse and more relief on the treble side a 50% possibility. Good fret work can change this easily by manipulating the neck with pressure when leveling.

Guitar has minimal saddle, lots of fret wear and a neck reset is soon to be needed? Further manipulation of how one levels can belay the need for a neck reset perhaps a few years or so by concentrating on material removal close to the body thusly changing the fret plane level angle relative to the neck angle.

Back to your question, 120 and 220 is all you need for the beam IMO.

I'll add that frets should be secured too meaning glued in. Loose frets will betray you in the leveling process sticking up with no pressure and moving away from the beam when touched by it. Always glue frets before dressing OR if they were glued by anyone other than you check each one by tapping them with something metal on both ends and in the middle.

If I needed 120 to level frets on a new Guitar I'd seriously look at my fretting technique.

I've never needed coarser than 320. But that's just me I guess


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While on the subject of fretting, I am getting ready to fret my tenth electric build, a LP style.
The board is on the neck.
My fretting skills are improving, but not great. I plan to mimic a fretless wonder on the guitar.
These are those flat nubby frets. I have medium wire and plan to sand the heck out of them to get the low profile. I think the difficult part will be sanding to follow the board radius. Any advice (other than not doing it) would be appreciated.
Yehaw from Texas,
Dan

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Yeah don't do it.....

Last year I picked up an American Strat and hate the thing.... What I hate about it are the jumbo frets. Maybe I'm lazy how I play but they feel like speed bumps to me and WAY too high ones too.

So my idea was to mill them down from a height of .060" to around .030". Even guitars that I have played for nearly 40 years show very little fret wear so I'm not worried about giving away any longevity of the frets certainly if I won't play the thing as is....

So with leveling beams and 80 grit..... (here's an application for beyond 120 grit...) I busted my arse for over four hours and got down to perhaps .050" in height. Then I got some help from our apprentice who spent likely four hours on the thing too and took it to about .039" which is where I did a final level, recrown and how I play it today.

Point being that what and how we did this took a very long time and a lot of effort.... Truly flat files would speed things up and we may have used them too, can't remember.

Anyway if you go this route tracing the string paths with the leveling beams will impart a bit of a compound radius which is desirable IMO and often touted as a feature. Don't ya love it when things just work out....

Nice looking neck and inlay work by the way - very well done!

Back on topic - so if you do go the route of taller frets milled down manually.... use the lowest wire you can get and maybe a good idea to avoid stainless for this one....

Thanks Hesh!
Well, if it was a pain for an expert, then it sound's like a bad idea for me to try.
I'll search for some suitable low profile frets, or just use medium.
I hate those jumbo tall and wide frets too.

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Regarding a statement above indicating that only the frets that need it are leveled since the board was flat my issue with this belief and practice is that the very act of fretting changes the shape of the neck. How many folks who fret the board off the neck noticed that the board develops back bow with more of it where the frets get closer together? Gluing this board on the neck may impact back bow to the neck.

Some rely on a double action rod to counter the back bow of fretting that, by the way happens even when fretting with the board glued to the neck as in Martin's "compression fretting."

If you have ever read Stew-Mac's kit instructions that Dan Earlywine collaborated on he shows how to glue the board to the neck cantilevered off the bench with a riser stick coming from the floor to the headstock pushing against the neck back bow slightly as the glue sets.

Other methods are using a rigid caul to keep board and neck straight and keeping it clamped long enough for any water based glue to dissipate the water imparted to the dissimilar materials of the neck and board. So now you have a perfectly straight neck. Fret it and then see that it's no longer straight either. Stuff happens...

Now after fretting regardless of having fretted the board on or off the neck we are now relying on the truss rod to straighten out the neck AND impart the exact needed force exactly where the neck now needs it to get it straight. We all have observed or many have that truss rods have always been imperfect solutions in that they apply different if any... amounts of force in different locations and not always where we want it either...

After using the rod to straighten the neck and if one applied marker and hit the frets with the beam my guess is that some would be very surprised at where the beam hits and where it does not hit. And this hit and miss nature of the beam contacts are the inaccuracies in the fret plane after fretting and before leveling. I agree that a newly fretted board fretted well may require minimal leveling and said that above. But you still have to level IMO and you also cannot possibly know if you don't need to level with a fret rocker. For me it's a bit of a Catch-22 in that the only way that I can think of to know if you need to level is to proceed as if you are leveling with a precision beam, paper, and bluing/marker and see where it hits. I'm confident that the results would surprise some folks.

Sure it's possible to get around this too by perhaps relying on glue to hold frets in only and milling the slots wider or nixing the barbs. Shorter scales are more forgiving too if that's what one builds and errors will not be as noticeable.

Building in the precision is always worth while but trusting that this built-in precision and your process control is flawless seems like a long walk on a short pier to me. Especially with wood! I'm unfortunately a bit too fond of breathing my own air at times so I go out of my way to be sure that I breath the air of others to be sure I'm not fooling myself and no jokes about farts either please, well maybe a few.... I also find it difficult to understand why there is any resistance to doing the final details for the human interface to the instrument, the neck and fret plane in so much is this is where the least amount of effort will likely benefit the player the very most. That's also by definition..... value for our clients - always the goal.

This is why I always want to view the fret plane as a whole and never in the isolation of say the limited view of a fret rocker. Currently the only way that I know to do this is to level the entire fret plane with the board on the neck.

Some years back someone proclaimed on a forum that they were so very excited after trying stainless which was new to them... that no leveling was required. When the instrument was played in person by someone else who took issue with this proclamation many of the frets were loose and moving when pressed and nothing was even close to level when using the strings as the natural straight edge that they are to check it out. The instrument was unplayable as is and the maker was proud as can be...

We chalked it up to that "good enough" designation mentioned earlier and the fact that good enough means many different things to many different folks. And to be sure there is no intended or perceived insult here to anyone what there is is a major disagreement in the importance of leveling the entire fret plane AND what it takes to know when that level set is achieved.

No biggie some will, some won't, so what..... next. My ex girlfriend used to say that and it's a fond memory for me.

Cool Dan and I hope that something here helps you retain the full use of your favorite arm for as long as you wish! Milling through tall frets was very, very hard to do for me.... and I likely broke labor laws asking an apprentice to do it too - thanks again to the apprentice as well and he know's who he is....

I use these two radiused sanding beams. The first one is exactly 12 inch radius the second one is larger by the depth of the fret plus a little for the sandpaper
I made these on the CNC
That way my frets come out exactly the same depth from the high and E sideto the low-end E side


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Ken

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Are we referring to Classical or SS? I don't see the point of a sanding beam on a Classical. It will only serve to remove any relief that may have been introduced into the fretboard. Unless it has a two way adjustable truss rod, which is entirely different.

Nice Ken!

Classicals benefit from precision fret work for the very same reasons that steel strings do and just like with steel string guitars the necks on classicals move as well creating errors in the fret plane over time that benefit from precision fret dressing.

Relief is not lost in the fret dressing process by any means.... Instead a skilled Luthier knowledgable with fret work can increase relief, reduce relief, move relief to the other side of the board, and control the amount of relief and no truss rod is required.... A PLEK can do these things too but we humans were doing it first....

Granted poor fret work is often not as noticeable on classicals because of the higher action being more forgiving but we see classicals with issues as well, issues that are resolved at times with fret dressing. We also see classicals where the frets have been poorly glued or not glued at all and they are now loose and spongy moving up and down with pressure. They have to be reseated, glued, clamped and then the thing is leveled and dressed.

Sure classicals won't be bending the G string one whole step up at the 12th and subject to fretting out if the fret work sucks but they still benefit from decent fret work.