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We don't do any understring leveling and think it's not precise enough for many of the clients that we have who demand very high quality fret work. What's wrong with taking the strings off?

Matt we use precision leveling beams that we have gone to a great deal of trouble to true up on a certified surface plate to be level over their entire span with an error rate of less than .0002". This is pretty level when you consider the longer beams that we use on bass and fretless necks. We have about a dozen of these beams we made and maintain in all different lengths.

Our leveling beams are checked with bluing, machinist methods approximately annually and if need be they are reflatened to be precise again.

We teach high-quality, precision fret work and a couple dozen OLFers have been to our classes. We are of course no longer offering these classes in that our work load is now more than twice what we can handle. Our students tell us that they learned a lot and some of them, Steve have made a goodly amount of money doing fret work with our methods.

Dave Collins, my business partner methods were demoed to Dan E who is a friend and he got his start with the same Luthier that our shop has his old shop now, Herb David RIP. Dan thought we took fret work further than anyone else he knows and he said so and he consults with us at times regarding fret work.

This is not a hobby or an academic pursuit for us this is how we feed our families so when Glenn D. a jazz player needs action of 2/64th" and 3/64" at the 12th that does not rattle we have to deliver and know that our methods will deliver. When another client needs his fretless bass to play perfectly on the Tonight Show we have to deliver. And when a now 80 year old client who is on 35 albums and played guitar for Miles Davis wants his two D'Aquistos that were built by D'Aquisto for this gentleman to be perfect players our fretting methods assure that we can get the job done. These are only several examples there are many where uber precise fret work is not only requested but it's demanded and the methods that we have used and developed never let any of us down.

So a couple of things we disagree with you on Matt. The notion that fall-away can be too much, sure it can so why mill in too much? For a flat picking blue grasser around .010" from the 12th to the last is cool. For a shredder only several thou from the 12th to the last is appropriate because they use the upper registry so much.

We also disagree strongly... that understring leveling is acceptable. Sure it's been done for all of time but it cannot match the precision of treating the entire fret plane as a whole as the strings see it. Strings are a natural straight edge as well and they will tell us when something is not level.

Since you mentioned it when we fret we treat the fret board as the fret plane because it is indeed the fret plane or part of it. So we level our boards to the nth degree, mill in relief in varying amounts bass side vs. treble side, mill in fall-away ( differing amounts depending on the instrument and it's purpose) before we ever press home a single fret. When the frets are installed with this method very minor touch-up is required on the fret crowns because of all the attention we paid to the fret board and this notion that we subscribe to that the fret board should be treated as a whole. An added benefit is stainless frets. With our methods we are hogging off minimal fret material which with stainless is a good...... thing since it's difficult to work.

Now to come back to earth I'm peddling as much precision as we can find and never see it as a bad thing. OTOH 90% of guitars and players will not benefit from some of the things that we shoot for and deliver and we know this. But the 10% who will beat a path to our door do benefit and some of them find high precision fret work to be essential to how they play.

When it comes to using 18" precision milled leveling beams, I am curious why using a full length beam (e.g., 18") under string tension would be inferior to using one with the strings off, as both are treating the fret plane as a whole.

Not a sarcastic question -- I'm always looking to expand my knowledge. I have spent thousands of hours obessing over fretwork and have done many refrets and many levels, but am limited by the resources I've had available to me. It certainly hasn't been for a lack of effort that I'm still looking for the "holy grail" with fretwork.

It's too bad you guys didn't make an online course out of it. The potential revenue from a Fretwork Mastery course could be huge, particularly if Stewmac pushed it, and to clarify, I mean a one-and-done course, authoritatively presented, not an open forum that would have to be maintained daily. Something that would be done once, finished and published, and then generate passive income while things go back to normal. I wouldn't underestimate the amount of money such a course could generate.

I would venture so far as to say if Dan is going to you guys for help with fretwork, asking for his or his team's help with making a course could be very well worth it --

-- but I do understand from what you've explained that this is simply not going to happen, as there's no getting away from survival, and the shop already has way more work than it can handle. I'm only saying this because I think it's a shame to imagine such valuable information simply being lost with a generation. I'm big on immortalizing valuable information, and one of my best friends is a professional archiver/digitizer who works with digital/film/audio/any media format you can think of, for the purpose of conservation, and we feel the same way about these things But again, unfortunately, nothing can be done about it, but I wish it could. It does seem that the truly valuable information gets lost in a sea of B.S., which is a real shame -- the B.S. being misinformation spread elsewhere, including packages that people charge a lot of money for that don't actually deliver information that will get results.

Anyway: My preferred setup is fairly demanding. My string gauges are .008, .011, .015, .022w, .030w, .046w, and preferred action is the neck dead straight or .002" relief max, with the action @ the 12th fret .021-.024" on the High E to G strings, and .030"-.040" on the D, A, and Low E strings.

As it stands, it plays great, but is lacking in a couple areas: one, the Low E has a lot more buzz than I'd like. Two, when bending beyond a whole step on the B and E strings, and to some extent the G, I'm getting choke-out on a lot of frets. I did a 7.25" to 12" compound radius on this one, and leveled the 'old school' way with a full length precision beam with the strings off.

Now, this is a thread about fallaway, which I may have to implement here to correct these issues while still maintaining my preferred radius. This of course is a result of the failure to do this before fretting, which I'm a bit disappointed in myself for, as I've been aware for many years that fretwork can only be as good as the fretboard itself. The fretboard preparation is everything. I've gone so far as to play the guitar fretless before fretting it, and while I understand fret compression is a thing and the neck is not stable with the frets pulled out like it is with them in, I've gotten good results before when guaranteeing the neck is playing perfectly fretless *before* putting the frets in.

In addition to having a foolproof method, I think having a "tolerable lower limit" for action can be helpful as well. Whole step bends, 2 whole step bends, at a given neck relief and 12th fret action -- the methodology should include expectations for what is realistically achievable.

I do think 2/64" and 3/64" is completely reasonable as a "tolerable lower limit" for action, perhaps with a margin of .010" below that.

Anyway, off to bed for me. I'm not sure if my expectations for my own guitar are unrealistic at my desired specs, but I don't think they are -- I just think my fretwork needs more work. This stuff is truly maddening, and trust me, I've spent many, many, many late nights laboring over frets obsessively, including for customers.

Survival is a thing, and needing to feed your family -- but there is a limit. Needing to survive will still not grant you the skills you need if you simply don't have the resources. You could be dependent on doing a perfect fret job for a customer to feed your family, but if you don't have the skills, you couldn't do it even if you had a gun to your head. I feel like I often end up in that situation as I need "perfect" frets, not "good enough," as I'm an avid player and have pretty severe OCD. But I frequently hit a wall that I can't move beyond. I think many people share this same sentiment and it's simply a product of not having the necessary skills or understanding to take things from a "7" to a "10."

There is a really severe lack of good information online, whether free or paid -- I actually think luthiery is majorly lacking in the "online courses" department, in terms of professionally produced content that is scripted well, to the point, and is intended for people at an advanced level looking for the best they can get. It's a niche market, and while I already understand this is not something feasible for a busy shop -- it's still a nice thought to imagine one day something like that could exist.

In the meantime...more fretting over frets

Because every implementation of an understring leveling device that we have seen available or someone has come up with the idea has flex in it and cannot match the stiffness of 1" X 2" aluminum tube stock. Steel such as the Stew Mac beam is even better but a bit harder to flatten and heavy for old guys like me endlessly toiling by candle light at our Loofier bench

Matt do you want to post a pic of what you use, you may have something better than I am aware of and this may not apply to you if that is the case? Thanks man.

But more specifically some people will chase one rattle or the next and Stew Mac even sells tools for leveling no more than a few frets at a time and we are very against this notion of spot leveling and instead want an entire fret plane that is level, the frets are well glued in place and the geometry of the neck and fret plane is correct in terms of relief, where the relief is and fall-away.

Regarding an on-line fretting course the folks here who have taken our course(s) will tell you that we also encourage people to develop a "feel" for what they are doing and there is "a touch" involved too that we teach but this also requires examples in real time and the ability for me to let a student feel for themselves the amount of pressure that for example I am applying to the headstock face with my finger tips. We manipulate the neck for various reasons so feel is key to our approach to fret work.

And when we are showing someone how to cut a nut slot to less than a thou of clearance on the high e when fretting and holding at the 3rd this has to be seen in person because it can't be easily measured and instead the student is instructed to look for a sliver of light.

And Matt we spent a lot of time with our students. Every one of them had a dedicated instructor at their side helping them do what we are teaching them at least 50% of the 10 - 12 hour days that they spent with us. These classes are not easy, they are a lot of hard work, we run long days with few breaks and people are on their feet much of the time. I got stuck in an elevator once too and the fire department had to get me out Entertainment ya know...

Anyway my business partner and pal Dave Collins does not think that he can convey properly what is largely his intellectual property without being in person with the students. He professionally taught Lutherie at the Galloup School and was also a Luthier at Elderly Instruments before having his own business for the past nearly 20 years now. So he knows a few things about teaching Lutherie and has professionally taught many, many people.

I'm one of his accomplishments Matt. A savant guitar builder (he has called me this...) who was told by Rick Turner that he's not **** unless he learns the repair business. So I apprenticed with Dave for three years and then opened my own shop. Anyway fret work and having sex both could be taught at a high level on-line but most would agree that being in position to feel what it is happening too is an advantage.

I read your entire post Matt and only have time to respond to certain things but I wanted to suggest something to you. You said that you have labored over and over and spent countless hours getting this fretting right. Good going you remind me of me. I lived and breathed Lutherie when I got the bug too.

I can take the strings off a guitar, mark the frets with bluing, adjust the truss rod, hit it with a 220 papered leveling beam for only a few seconds, adjust the rod again and then do my leveling. This may take on a few minutes. Next it's milling in fall away which often has to be done first if there is kick-up. Next with a perfectly level fret plane and fall-away induced I impart relief with less on the treble side and more on the bass side.

Then we have a process for eliminating scratches without changing the level set of the fret plane and then I polish the frets on our Collins fret buffer (takes 5 minutes) and then some Howard's and it's done.

Putting the strings back on and doing a final set-up and I can consistently achieve a playable 3/64th" for the high e at the 12 and 4/64th" for the low e. This is for a light attack player. I can consistently get 2.5/64th which is too low for most players who know how to actually play and depend on being able to get under strings too... for a player who knows how to play very low action with a light attack.

And most importantly for a commercial endeavor this all happens in two hours or less and I'm an old guy who does not move all that quickly these days.

But the real point is I go though our process and hundreds of times one after another the results are always the very same, there is never and has never been anything that I needed to chase.

Consistency is a very welcome thing after a long slog and in a commercial environment where time is money. I'll add as well something that is very important to us, setting a client's expectation properly and accurately is easy when we always get the same, great results. We can describe what we will deliver honestly and we have yet to have anyone who was not thrilled with our work as a client. This is after thousands and thousands of guitars serviced.

You sound like you have really worked very hard to understand this stuff and that makes me think that you would really benefit from a master class in fret work.

But on the other side of the same coin Matt guitars are imperfect, necks droop, gravity skews our work and many players want what is not possible and even advisable as in the example of getting under a string. So it is what it is.

I've been flirting with an on-liine set-up class that I might teach since I do over 600 set-ups a year but I keep running into issues of how I convey less than a thou of clearance when a student is not present to see the sliver of light for themselves.

How to mill in fall away, and how to mill relief into the frets, are extremely pertinent, and two things I've been pondering over the past months in attempts to take my fretwork to the next level. I'm aware of the concepts, and the importance, but haven't found the perfect way to implement them yet. I'll just be over here continuing to struggle and chasing buzz/choking out of the frets, though I really do wish I knew a better way. I've read over your description very carefully and will be implementing what I can right away.

I wrote a very, very long reply, with many, many things in it. But the long and short of it is this: if the method you're using works perfectly, it is the be-all end-all and there is no need for another method, and it definitely deserves to have a course created for it.

That can also be a potential funnel for people willing to come to the shop for personal instruction. As for Dave Collins' fears: use a simple disclaimer, something to the effect of "The information in this course has been prepared as meticulously as possible, but there is no substitute for hands-on, in-person experience and instruction. If you're a seasoned guitar technician or luthier, you may be able to implement these ideas to take your fretwork to a level you could have never dreamed of before, but if you're a beginner or a technician looking to truly master these techniques inside and out for 100% guaranteed results on every single job, consider coming to our shop in Ann Arbor for personal instruction at one of our Master Classes."

Now, for that, I'd just jack the price up. If you guys aren't offering classes anymore because it was not profitable enough, you'd need to charge an amount that would make it worth it. The worst thing that happens is people balk at the price and nobody shows up, but if you never offer classes again, you're guaranteeing no one will show up. If you charge twice or three times the amount you used to charge, or whatever price would make it worth it, maybe nobody shows up -- but if people do, you profit big time, and could afford getting a little more backed up on repairs.

That could include limits: offer a class but say it's only possible if x amount of people sign up at x price. People can commit to paying for the class, but only pay once the seats -- your profits -- have been secured, to make sure it's worth your time and the inevitable piling up of some extra repairs.

The marketing is already in place just by virtue of what your shop has accomplished, and the clients its served. "Some of the top guitarists and bassists in the world have relied on our services exclusively to meet their needs, and without fail over the past x years, we've delivered 100% of the time. Not a single guitar has left this shop with less than perfect frets since its founding. There hasn't been a single guitar or bass, fretted or fretless, that we couldn't get buzz free with ridiculously low action. And if you implement the skills and techniques we're about to show you, you'll be one giant step closer to achieving the same results for your guitar and bass repair business, or even just dialing in your own guitars to perfection."

The other alternative is just having the disclaimer, and continuing with never doing classes again, which is perfectly fine. You could even mention that: we used to offer classes, but no longer do, but for clarification, your results may vary without in-person guidance and instruction due to the extremely fine nature of fretwork.

If people need to know that results can't be guaranteed without in-person instruction, simply mention that, and continue to display the methods. I'd keep this in mind: "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

The reality is that the majority of techs are doing sub-par fretwork because they genuinely don't know any better. The only possible outcome I could see of someone purchasing an online Fretwork Mastery course is improving their fretwork -- even if they can't get to the level you guys are at, they will likely vastly improve their skills. I don't think it's possible that it would lead people to doing *worse* fretwork or ruining people's guitars because they tried and failed to implement the methods discussed. Most people techs are already doing that all by themselves, simply by using imprecise fret leveling, because again -- they don't know any better because they never had any access to good information that has been tested in fire in the real world.

I will say that with a good long focal length (e.g. 105mm) macro lens, a good tripod and good lighting, you can show more than you might think is possible. But thinking that the videography has to be super professional is also a self limitation. Even just basic shots and a good, clear auditory explanation may cover everything necessary.

Even explaining the "sliver of light" -- any techs with experience will immediately know what you're talking about. You can simply describe "I'm looking for a sliver of light around x fret, that gradually disappears completely by the x fret."

Again...from the sounds of it, you are already over-qualified. The obsession with perfection can really obstruct things. "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." A course is a one-and-done, something you can work on in the background and piece together slowly, and once it's completed, you have a digital product that you don't have to do a single thing with but collect checks and PayPal payments from.

Dave Collins' reservation is probably the potential for spreading misinformation, from people misapplying the concepts, due to a lack of in-person instruction. However, again...disclaimer. Make it clear that you're doing your best to clearly explain and clearly show these methods and exactly how they work, but without in-person instruction, results can't be guaranteed.

The thing to remember is that people will still be willing to pay for that information with that full knowledge. So if the sales pitch of guaranteeing techs will improve their fretwork to unseen levels rubs you the wrong way -- you could simply package it as an insider glimpse into the Ann Arbor shop / Dave Collins' fretwork method.

Then there are no pretenses about people fully developing these skills. People will pay for an insider look into the methods, even without a promise that they'll be able to do the same thing after watching the course.

I think the information is extremely valuable. To get those kinds of results, it is worth paying just to be able to watch someone do it, and explain how they're doing it. And then it also makes a legacy of it, instead of leaving that information to rot away and get buried under the sands of time.

And you guys deserve to profit from it. I'm not a business guy, but it just makes logical sense that passive income could be a great help to the business. And the fretwork could be the crown jewel, but all the other work you guys do -- you could have any number of courses on tricky repairs and special techniques you all use to get beyond professional results. Acoustic top crack repair master class, vintage and modern guitar and bass finish repair and restoration master class, etc., neck resets, setups as you mentioned, etc.

The list just goes on and on. The fretwork seems the most critical to me as there is literally no information about this anywhere on the entire Internet. I'm not even joking. Pretty much 100% of the information online is useless and comes from people who have not done a real-world deep dive into fretwork, who depend on getting the most perfect results possible. That information is extremely valuable, and again, deserves to be shared.

And you guys deserve to profit from it. Obviously this may be tough to balance while drowning in guitar and bass repairs. But the trade-off is that the courses are a one-time deal, so once you manage to siphon away the time necessary to make them, it's a done deal.

I could very easily see this being pitched on Stewmac. They have a huge platform, from hobbyists to professionals. Anyway, I'm just getting over-excited because I'd love to watch a course like that myself as my Strat sits here in fret purgatory.

And I've been doing fretwork for over 17 years. That's how desperately this info is needed. To bring it all full circle, even this thread is evidence of this: why would someone go online and make a thread about fallaway? There's gobs of information about fallaway on Google.

The problem is there is no GOOD information about it, or how to properly implement it. For example, I'm sitting here wondering if I should just put some tape over the first or second frets and use a full length beam to level some fallaway into the entire board, because where it is right now isn't working. I'm taking shots in the dark at this point. This is where 99% of people are with fretwork if they took an honest look at themselves and their skills -- the 1% sounds like it's guys at your shop in Ann Arbor.

One more time: "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." And for concerns about people not being able to apply the information accurately due to lack of in-person instruction, use the disclaimer, whether you decide to offer classes again or not.

There are also people like me with agoraphobia who couldn't make it out to places to learn even if someone had a gun to our head, but we want to learn too

Side note: the beams I use are made out of carbon fiber. I only use short ones as I wasn't able to find anyone who could manufacturer longer ones (16", 24") to the necessary specs. Never saw anybody else use this material and it's an idea I thought of and started implementing quite a few years ago.

Treated properly, carbon fiber is capable of having a tensile modulus/modulus of elasticity easily higher than steel, meaning much stiffer and even more resistant to flexing than steel, while keeping it much thinner at little as 1/5 the weight. The ones I use are about .030" thick, which fit under the strings extremely easily.

I used to make and sell the shorter length levelers but had to stop as I was essentially giving them away. Carbon fiber is extremely expensive, even more so in regards to ultra high elasticity modulus carbon fiber, and if the manufacturer can mill them flat to machinist standards, it certainly would not be cheap to do so.

I have the Stewmac Fret Bars as well, got them just to try them out, and the alleged accurate tolerance they're milled to. I have mixed feelings about them, one of my main gripes being I don't like the way they feel in my hand. The ones I made feel amazing and are light as a feather, but again, while I have longer lengths, I only trusted the shorter lengths that I could flatten on a surface plate. Milling longer beams flat sounds like a nightmare and I have no experience doing that, although I wish I did.

I think understring leveling also has the potential benefit of leveling in the playing position, to eliminate gravity as a variable, but as mentioned earlier, if perfect results are achieved using no string tension, with a regular leveling beam, and that works in 100% of cases, nothing additional is needed. If there's a method using basic tools that guarantees the best possible fretwork, and it can't be improved upon, there is no reason to use anything else.

If I can figure that out, I'll be doing that tomorrow and will never touch other levelers again. As mentioned, I'm only interested in repeatable results-- at the end of the day, it's all that matters, and I have no qualms about abandoning anything and everything prior to get there.

As it stands, my usual method when doing a refret is to use a flat leveling beam to get all the frets even first, then after stringing it up, I use the understring leveler to dial everything in. I prefer adding fallaway with the understring leveler to only remove as much as I have to, and as for the rest of the board, the understring leveling is minimal, done in the playing position alternating with testing the string bends to make sure nothing is choking out.

Always open to new techniques and methods, better ways of doing things -- it's what keeps life interesting.

Overthinking it is no answer. I've been doing this for 45 years and early on I stumbled onto the idea of using an 18" long, aluminum carpenter's level with flat edges. Made my own sticky back sandpaper and hung up my shingle. I sort of lucked out on one of my early jobs and got an LP to be buzz free with action down to 1/16" (Edit: I meant to say 1/32"). That was a revelation. I have certainly tried other approaches and tools over the years but that carpenter's level is still my main tool.

Suggestions for you, Matt: 1) Always use a long beam. Using short beams will only result in you chasing your tail. Understring leveling is not recommended, except for masters of the craft like the late Rick Turner.
2) To do fall away, place about 3 or 4 layers of thick masking tape around the 9th or 10th fret and start leveling. Keep going until you see that you are sanding up to your desired break point which should be at the neck/body connection. Add more tape if your sand it away.
3) Start your leveling with 220 grit and then finish up with 400 grit. Don't over level but try to hit the top of all frets. Use a red Sharpie marker on top of the frets so that subsequent crowning can be stopped when you have a fine red line left.
4) Sand the frets with 400 then 800 grit and don't oversand. Try to sand each fret equally. Buff. Done.

Matt I appreciate all your comments and the great deal of thought that went in to them.

Yes with our methods we are never chasing our tails and our fret work always turns out as wished and expected, no surprises and this is what one should expect when as I say over and over and over again we always treat the fret plane as a "whole" and never do anything in isolation.

You know too our pricing is based on the time AND value that we deliver. The value part is difficult to explain but it's my bag and something I'm bringing to our pricing efforts. Anyway we believe that a fret dress and full set-up is a 2 hour job. If your's take much longer than that you may be chasing your tail for some reason.

Our business has changed and few people have even experienced anything like what we have now. Since we are not a music store we have to be sharp, work hard and not get bogged down in any slogs. So we employ 21st century methods and I speak of things I brought with me from my enterprise software days such as Six Sigma concepts for quality, JIT for what we stock, and LEAN for how we function generally speaking.

We are turning away more Tham 50% of the work that comes out way because we are too busy already and we do not want to expand. In fact we want to slow down these days as I'm headed in time to the bone yard for old, grumpy, crusty loofiers who struggle these days to not let people know what I really think.... It is indeed a struggle now too, stuff I say just flies out at times...

We've educated lots of folks, we trained apprentices, we made millions with just our labor alone, we have developed tools from the Collins Saddle Mill to the Collins Fret Buffer and more, we met and worked with and still do famous players and we have had million dollar instruments in our hands and on our benches. An A-list musician and actor was in our shop with sunglasses on yesterday picking up his 37 Kalamazoo.

So in all honesty Matt teaching was hard and sucked lots of time because we also did a lot to prepare for it in advance and that consumed us for a while. So we really just these days want to continue the work we do. I'm off in a few minutes to Ann Arbor and it's 3:30 AM when I am going in. I have two Collings and one crap guitar to do this AM and then I will steer home and enjoy the day.

Teaching at least for now is not something we really want to do anymore we have other interests.

We are happy to exchange ideas with other industry pros but it's very rare that we hear anything that really benefits us now on forums. Dave won't participate here and considers it a big waste of time. I do too and it's about once a year that I read a post here that actually interests me now.

So ramping up involvement which teaching does is just not in the cards for us.

Matt fretting is an art. Collins was 35 before he developed his methods which like Barry suggested may be like other people's methods if form truly follows function and I believe that it does too. I can help you with questions but be specific and limit them to take into account that I am a busy guy and reading one of your posts does take a while. I know, I'm pedantic too so I should talk eh?

Barry's method sounds great and is similar to ours. I do want to give you though how I induce fall away because it's simple and fast.

1). Adjust the truss rod for a flat neck

2). Apply bluing we use red marks-a-lot markers.

3). Hit the frets with a long beam that hits all of the frets. If you are hitting on the extension (after the 12th) you need to induce fall-away. How much is a function of what kind of instrument. A flat picking blue grass acoustic with mediums do two pieces of 3M masking tape on a short beam that spans the 12th to the last. A shredder electric do one piece of masking tape. We are controlling the amount of fall-away with tape.

The goal is two separate fret planes. The first is frets 1 - 12 and the second is 12 though the last fret. With this said when addressing the 1 - 12 plane and when fall-away is induced you are now also hitting far fewer frets with the beam at once making the milling faster and easier with the extension frets taken out of play.

4). Work the short beam and the grit can be anywhere from 120 to 240ish for hogging off material. We also have files that are very aggressive that we use to induce fall-away to shorten the time it consumes. Remember too the more aggressive the paper them more scratches you will have to remove so again Barry's less aggressive paper is a good thought too.

5). When working the short beam keep the tape approx. over the 12th fret. The tape will wear and fall apart, replace it as needed.

6). Periodically go back to rebluing and hitting with the long beam again to see progress.

7). When with the truss rod adjusted for a straight neck and with the long beam you are now hitting frets 1 - 12ish and you can see the bluing stat in tact from approximately the 12th to the last you have induced fall away. How much is a less than perfect science in terms of inducing it but just as your North Star work for less fall away for shredders and electrics so action remains low up the neck and more for heavy hitters on acoustics with big ass strings lashing out.

If you want to quantify fall-away .010 - .015" measured at the last fret for a flat picking blue grasser with mediums. Less for everyone else and minor for shredders, .005 maybe for shredders.

But really just get these frets out of the way is the goal.

There are lots of ways to arrive at the same thing too so this is just one method that Dave developed and it works flawlessly for us. We believe and so do the Luthiers who we hang with that our results are as good or better than a PLEK and that's certainly good enough for commercial quality Lutherie work. Others are also suggesting this very concept in that Suhr guitars and Collings guitars PLEK too but finish with fine hand work like we do. The combination of the two technologies is likely a great approach.

Hope this helps man! I'm off to fix some Collings Geetars and enjoy being a geezer these days

If you want I will explain how I induce relief too just ask and please keep the questions limited to only a few so I can get my head around it. Thanks man. PS: relief is all about a "touch" in our fretting abilities and it's a cool thing to do and create.

Deeply appreciate this. Poring over your post once again, have read it about five times.

Question 1) Would leveling all the frets with a full length beam until *all* the bluing marks on *all* frets disappear, *then* adding in fallaway be appropriate?

Question 2) I'd be very curious about your method for inducing relief, and would *very* deeply appreciate you sharing that. The one thing I have not been able to confidently deal with and still eludes me is Low E/A string buzz.

**Rambling**

My personal attempts over the years have included 1) putting the neck into a slight backbow and using a full length beam only on the Low E and A string side of the frets, then bringing the neck back to straight, and 2) using a Rectify Master Katana in a slight concave bow, measured with a digital neck relief gauge, and sanding in an X pattern only on the Low E and A string side of the frets, to induce an extra .003" of relief. I verify with a digital neck relief gauge with the neck straight afterwards, strings tuned to pitch. For example, on my Strat at the moment, I have .000" relief measured everywhere else, but between the E/A and A/D strings, I have .003" of relief in the frets. If I go to .002" of relief on the treble side, the Low E/A side will be at .005", etc.

The best results I've gotten so far are with the Katana and digital relief gauge, but I feel my results could be even better: one issue is there is no 'standard' for buzz. I'll ask this question like this:

You know how the Low E rings clear as a bell in the upper register (e.g. frets 15 to the end) due to the shorter vibrating length/smaller arc? I'm wondering if that's how clear it should sound *everywhere* at 4/64" or 3/64" action, if the frets are properly relieved. I have no idea if this is a realistic expectation or not, but in a perfect world, I would be able to achieve that, and in my mind that's been the "standard" I've aimed for, and have not been able to achieve.

The Low E (.046" gauge) is currently at .044" at the 12th fret, and while to me the buzz is tolerable, I feel like it could be a lot better than it is.

At .058" action (just shy of 4/64"), the buzz is nearly gone, but still present. Completely tolerable, but present. This comes back to my question of whether it's reasonable to expect the Low E and A strings to ring clear as a bell, with *no audible buzz at all* with 3/64" or 4/64" action at the 12th fret. "Acceptable buzz" is not clearly established and on every single stock guitar I've ever played, it had some amount of buzz on the Low E string, and it was just a matter of whether it was tolerable or indicated an actual fretting issue. I never thought this was ideal, but never knew if it could truly be completely eliminated.

As for the A string (.030" gauge), I currently have it at .035" and it has a very slight amount of buzz that to me is tolerable. The relief I induced seemed to have a more noticeable effect on the A string, presumably because it's smaller and doesn't vibrate in as wide an arc as the Low E string.

Very curious about your method for inducing relief. I have only ever heard about carving relief into the frets from one other tech, and it was just reading his website online: Big John's Guitars from Denton, TX. It was years ago I found that while researching online, and he didn't explain how he did it, but mentioned the idea of the low strings needing more vibrating room than the higher ones, and that's when it clicked for me and I started experimenting on my own.

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Last note: wish you could meet my friend Steve. In his 70's now, and as I've mentioned before, started his full-time career as a tech and luthier working for Dan Armstrong in 1969 -- the guy that, along with Matt Umanov and Bill Lawrence, designed the Dan Armstrong see-through guitars. Dan had an extremely busy repair shop originally right across the street from Manny's Music, frequented by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and more, before relocating to Greenwich Village. Dan was doing a lot of work for a lot of big name touring musicians, and was a session musician himself, a phenomenal bassist. Steve's always told me it kind of ruined guitar work for him -- because everywhere else he worked after that, nobody else was as good or meticulous or creative as Dan was.

So anytime I can find anyone obsessed with guitar, I soak it up like a sponge. It's extremely rare. I'd love to share stories but time is short. You would not believe some of the repairs I've done with Steve and I won't even say publicly what our current project is, but it's very interesting stuff. The creativity and out of the box thinking for tough repairs that other people have turned away is a lot of what we thrive on. We've come up with more than a few patentable ideas but neither of us has any idea how that process works, and it seems like a huge financial burden. But I digress.

Deeply appreciate your input, and I hope this last part wasn't too much -- not looking to take up too much of your time but just wanted to share some personal guitar tech related stories. I've enjoyed listening to yours about Dave and the shop at Ann Arbor and it's a pleasure to know someone who takes guitar work as seriously as possible -- it's a true rarity.

You are very welcome Matt I am enjoying this exchange a great deal. You have a passion for this work that I have not seen before on this forum. And you clearly are a detail guy and so am I.

You asked: Question 1) Would leveling all the frets with a full length beam until *all* the bluing marks on *all* frets disappear, *then* adding in fallaway be appropriate?

When you start doing the leveling say on a Fender neck (they are notorious for kick-ups in the extension region) you may notice that you are working your arse off to achieve a level set but that the extension frets, where fall-away should be are proud (being hit with the beam) before many of the other frets in the middle of the neck. Of course the truss rod does not move the extension area of a neck.

So the remedy is to put some if not all of the fall-away in place with a short beam (tape on one end) first and get all frets 13 through the last out of play. It greatly... speeds the leveling along and for old guys like me this working smart lets me continue to do these things and not get too tired.

With this said I hit everything with a long beam just to see where it hits, 10 seconds max. If the extension frets are proud I mill in fall-away next. If not I may continue with the long beam but will check again to see if the extension frets are interfering with the beam hitting any of the frets 1 - 12.

Does this make sense?

Question 2) I'd be very curious about your method for inducing relief, and would *very* deeply appreciate you sharing that. The one thing I have not been able to confidently deal with and still eludes me is Low E/A string buzz.

Some basics about relief is that we want more on the bass side and less on the treble side. Only a very few boutique small factory builders shoot for this and for all others even the biggest names in the business we see more relief on the treble side (not desirable) and less on the bass side 50% of the time, luck of the draw for a good neck...... Why does the bass side need more relief because bass strings are more massive and as such more likely to hit frets if driven hard enough.

This is where an in person demonstration is WAY better but I will try to describe this in writing.

I rest the neck of the instrument on my leg vice around the 7th fret area so this vice becomes a fulcrum under the back of the neck. Presuming we have induced fall-away and we have a level set of all 1 - 12 frets and are with 220 paper with a long beam I trace the string path on the treble side of the neck while very gently pulling the head stock upward with my free hand. This causes the beam with 220 paper to hit the first several frets and the frets toward the body first or, in other words induces the slightest back bow to the treble side only.

Conversely I do the same on the bass side only with finger tip pressure downward now, not pulling up but pressing downward on the headstock I trace the string paths on the bass side of the neck with the beam and this hits the frets in the middle of the neck inducing a bit of forward bow or.... relief.

So my neck will be in very sight back bow with no string tension on the treble side and very slight forward bow on the bass side also with no tension.

Now imagine I'm starting with the beam on the treble side and moving from the high e to the b, g, d, a and finally the low e. When I am on the treble side I gently pull the headstock up and as I move to the middle this pull is released to nothing and as I move to the bass side my finger tips are now pressing downward on the head stock. Both hands are in motion doing different things one moving the beam one pressing or pulling on the head stock.

How much pressure is the pull and push, parhaps 1/3 of a pound it's not much and that's why this is the "touch" or "feel" of fine fret work we are now using our senses like the Luthiers of old to work the materials. We also were discussing rubber necks, here we use the fact that necks move to help us work.

You can see this is difficult to explain too in writing. But it's pull the treble side push the bass side, gently.

As Barry mentioned and Barry was one of my mentors by the way and I am always grateful to him! As mentioned count your strokes to attempt to be consistent. I may use only four strokes of the beam with 220 and pulling the head stock on the treble side and then only 4 - 6 strokes on the bass side.

But remember that this is a deviation from level set in both directions now. So if I only mill in 3 thou or relief on the bass side I have also eliminated 3 thou from the treble side. When string tension is added and the rod adjusted this guitar will have a difference in relief from the treble to the bass side of 6 thou and that's pretty good. It also will have more relief on the bass side making it properly fretted.

Buzzing and string rattle should not be present anywhere UNLESS we drive the string really hard. Every note should ring clear as a bell.

Now some shredders who want the uber low action will tolerate some buzz and rattle just so it's not also coming through the amp in favor of lower action. I always hold my nose when I have to set-up for one of these guys and we make them agree in advance that we provide no guarantee on our work/efforts when they want action below what the instrument is capable of doing well unless we do fret work too. Then it's also diminishing returns for them in so much as our fit work is expensive but worth it since the player benefits from decent fret work with every.... note.... they..... play.

I wish that I could meet Steve too he sounds great and he's lived and worked in this trade when the greatest were still with us. Very cool!! FYI My Lutherie skills came from Dave Collins mostly who learned from Dan E. and Bryan Galloup and Herb David.

Really appreciate the response more than I can say. This is a goldmine for me. Reading over everything again and again. It corroborates everything I've theorized over the years but have never been able to truly successfully implement to the desired degree. And never thought to carve forward bow into the treble side, only thought of carving relief into the bass side -- *and* I've certainly never had the opportunity to talk with any other tech or luthier about adding bow and relief to the frets, as it's essentially an unheard of technique. Now after reading your post it's finally starting to make sense.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to summarize: NO neck jig, NO understring leveling, NO fancy tools...just the basic tools every tech has, but the skill to use them masterfully. And perfect results. I'm making a huge mental note of this amidst the 'sea of confusion' with all kinds of tools and techniques muddying the waters. Here's what I took from your post:

1) Get the neck as straight as possible.

2) Do a 'test' level with a full length beam for a few passes to see the profile of the frets. If the leveler is hitting frets 12 and up heavily while barely sanding the other frets or missing them entirely, level in fallaway first to save time. Once you've leveled in the fallaway, re-mark the frets and do a full length level again to verify that the leveler is either hitting all frets equally, or only hitting the first 12 frets before hitting 12 to the end. If it's hitting all the frets equally, add a small amount of fallaway from 12 to the end of the board by taping over the leveler where it would normally hit the 11th fret, essentially using the 11th fret to angle the leveler.

3) Carve a modest forward bow into the treble side and relief into the bass side of the frets. Imagine a fluid motion where the leveler moves up and down across the treble side, to the middle, then to the bass side, while the neck is manipulated -- respectively -- from a slight forward bow, relaxed to straight, and then manipulated into a slight back bow, all gradually. Use the back of the neck around the 7th fret as a fulcrum point.

The end result is, when string tension is applied, the treble side will be pulled out of the induced 'back bow' to dead straight, and the bass side will be pulled into an even greater amount of relief than when the neck was straight. So, nice, low action on the treble side, and enough room on the bass side for the strings to breathe without rattling or buzzing. Normally, with a straight level and no bow/relief carved into the frets, you'll have buzzing on the bass side and higher action than desired on the treble side with the neck set for minor relief.

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Going to go through all of this again before I try anything drastic, or even anything at all. But what you said and how you described it made a lot of sense -- if you have time, let me know if I misinterpreted anything. From what you wrote I think I was able to visualize exactly what you were talking about, but of course the amount leveled, and the speed of the transition from treble to bass side, is not explainable. And I know exactly what you mean by "the touch" -- it has to be experienced firsthand, preferably after witnessing it firsthand.

Again...greatly appreciated. I think it's also cool to be using basic tools and relying primarily on the skillset with them. That is some real Jedi stuff, and I'm not even that familiar with Star Wars. But Guitar Yoda should be a thing if it isn't already.

In the meantime, I'm going to seriously consider abandoning my understring methods altogether. I have a lot of thinking to do, but it would be a huge relief to be able to leave all the extraneous, dead weight tools and techniques behind.

Speaking of which, perhaps the issue with using a convex leveler (such as a square channel truss rod, or the Recitfy Master Katana) to carve relief into the frets with the neck straight, vs. manipulating the neck itself, is that manipulating the neck itself is not a "cookie cutter" approach as using a tool with an exact convex curve is.

Perhaps every single neck is different, and by gently flexing the neck itself and using that profile to carve the frets, you're capturing any idiosyncracies the neck might have under real string tension. Just a thought. That's the only reason I can think of as to why using full length convex levelers has not worked for me as well as I've wanted it to, despite carving significant amounts of relief into the bass side of the frets.

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FYI, not sure if this will contribute any value in return to you or other people in this thread, but after the recommendations here, I got out some teflon tape I had lying around and it seems to work *amazingly well* for fallaway. It's very durable, reusable, and quite slippery. It glides over the 'target fret' like butter and I imagine this being able to be reused many times. Looks like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Fiberglass-Machi ... 58&sr=8-21

The one I have measures .005" thick. The name is (in case the link doesn't work) "PTFE Coated Fiberglass Teflon Tape." Just thought I'd throw this out there in case anyone hadn't tried it yet. I tried it a couple times last night and there was no degradation on the tape at all after fairly heavy use leveling fallaway into some stubborn frets. Again -- greatly appreciate the help here, it means the world to me.

Great that's my intent Matt to shine a light on this in a big way for you and I'm driven by the level of interest that you have which is great to see too. So I'm happy to help, one professional to another my friend.

Now considering that we are milling in back and forward bow to the fret plane also consider the possibility that we can do the very same things to the fret board PRIOR to the installation of the frets. Theoretically we will have the same outcome and that is less relief on the treble side and more on the bass side with the added benefit that very little material has to be milled off the fret crowns reducing greatly crowning time once the frets are installed. Install frets with a consistent..... consistent method of installation such as pressing.... which is more consistent than hammering and Bob's your uncle. Sorry to bring up more tools that you may not have a fret press, Stew-Mac Jaws II and a caul set from Andy Birko that we helped him develop.

Consider the ramifications here with stainless and all the grunt work that we have to do working rock hard stainless can be greatly reduced, at least 80% of it from this method too since the frets will need very little attention if the board is properly prepared.

And you're right just the basic tools and not only the knowledge of how to use them but an understanding of this process and it's sequence and which steps depend on prior steps etc. We, Dave and I always try to adopt methodologies that do not require us to back track on our work.

Looking at your numbers 1,2 and 3 YES you've got it, good going. I'll add the goal on the treble side is not dead flat that will likely result in some frets that "sizzle" meaning less than crystal clear notes and the prelude to rattle or buzz. So I like 2 - 3 thou of relief on the treble side and then she plays like butter with clear as a bell notes everywhere. We can control how much back bow which later under string tension translates into relief by counting our strokes as Barry previously suggested and noting our counts. I'm these days with a 220 beam doing maybe 5 - 6 strokes on both the bass and the treble side and what results is a few thou of relief on the treble side and maybe 6 - 7 thou on the bass side, just where I like it.

Please note too that yep around the 7th fret for the fulcrum but this is variable too so if you are doing a bass just place the fulcrum about half way between the 1st and the 12th frets for a bass or whatever you are working on and it's the same thing.

And keep the concept in your mind's eye that we are in fact now dividing the fret plane into two different fret planes. The first is 1 - 12 with two levels of relief and then 12 - the last with no relief and fall-away. You can draw this from a side view too and it's easier to understand.

Yeah the touch thing is very difficult to explain. Other pursuits in my life that had a "touch" component that helped take things to the next level were golf, pool, windsurfing and shooting. So me thinks that by touch I mean to say an innate and comprehensive understanding of a process to the point that it's predictable and repeatable.

Regarding your comments on the cookie cutter approaches I agree with you. In our method we apply or not any deviation to the work piece by counting our strokes. With a fixed curve tool it's done for you but you lose the control over how much.

Every single neck is indeed different and some are just absolute crap to work on as you have likely experienced prior too.

When I am done with a fret job I play every note on the neck that a good guitarist would hit to be sure that they ring clear and true. I also simulate player's styles seeing how heavy handed I can be. For many of my clients I know what their attack is too and that's helpful.

So Matt I also ask you kindly since you have a Youtube channel to not promote this method on Youtube. It's a product that Dave Collins spent hundreds of hours perfecting and as such if you do use any parts of this in a teaching situation we would appreciate that you respect the spirit of kindness and sharing that we provided you with here. If you want to use any of these concepts on a higher level in in a video perhaps attribute anything you have learned here to David Collins? Thanks man!

I also wanted to tell you that the first post I read from you you talked about tracing string paths and how what results was a compound radius. That is a 600 level course material understanding of this stuff my friend, a very advanced concept so I wanted to work with you immediately when I read that. Few people have gotten that far with fret work to be capable of doing compound radius fret work OR even understanding what it is and the benefits to the player and I'll add the builder too, a compound radius fret plane is easier to create with the method above than a non-compound radius fret plane.

Lastly remember too that it all begins with a surface plate, our's is calibrated for accuracy. Make some leveling beams out of 1 X 2 aluminum "tube stock" it's square but called tube stock.. and spend a day truing them up on the surface plate and they you will have reference standard tools ready to add a level of precision to a guitar's fret plane that it's never seen before.

No worries about YouTube -- I have a 6 part series on the way regarding 'refurbishing' an aftermarket neck, including planing the board and re-fretting, but all 6 parts were done before I signed up for this forum or was aware of these techniques. To be clear, at some point I may make a YouTube video referring to techniques I was experimenting with prior to you sharing this information with me, such as using the Rectify Master Katana to level relief into the bass side of the neck, or putting the neck into a back bow with the truss rod and then leveling the bass side -- but I would never promote Dave's method, the fulcrum + full length beam, or any of that, and if discussing any associated concepts about higher level fretwork, will be sure to credit him for what you've shared here, absolutely.

I'm excited to learn more and my brain is still synthesizing all the information you've shared here, and I have yet to experiment with any of it. I'm eager to, but have ruined many frets early in my career in an attempt to level them to perfection without knowing what I'm doing, and especially with how hard this SS refret was, and it being my main guitar -- I'm not keen on refretting it again, so I'll be mulling this over before getting the leveling beam out again. Very exciting stuff to think about and it's hard to keep writing here as my brain is still processing your latest post.

Story time: My friend Steve has been using nothing but a Nicholson file to level frets for decades. I don't know how he does it but I've seen his work hundreds of times and I've never been able to replicate those results, even though me not knowing any better at 15 years old, was taught the same method. Surprised I was able to make it through so many level and recrowns with nothing but a Nicholson file...there were so many do-overs, and my life was hard enough already at 15. And here I was thinking I sucked because I couldn't get the frets perfect like he did

There is an opposite to the Dunning Kreuger Effect, though I don't think it has a name. Basically people that are extremely gifted at doing difficult things underestimating the difficulty of what they're doing.

Anyway, I told him a couple years ago about my idea to put the neck in a back bow with the truss rod first, and then level, to carve some relief into the bass side of the frets. He was working on a Gibson SG Custom for someone that had been PLEK'd but was still buzzing on the low string side. He tried the method I had only told him over the phone, and ended up getting better results than I ever did, and at that point I had been trying for months. With a 7" or so Nicholson file no less.

So I was the one that told him about it, and I ended up being the one asking him for details about how exactly he did it, how tight did he get the truss rod, where did he level, etc. And even after he (vaguely) described what he did, I still wasn't able to replicate it. Kind of funny. Just goes to show that even armed with the knowledge, without the feel for it, it can end up being essentially worthless. That's the real rub with all this stuff. There's no substitute for mastering the feel.

Playing guitar is a good example. The real heart of playing cannot be notated in a tab or sheet music. The subtle timing, the pick attack, vibrato, all these tiny, minute details that go into making it sound great -- there is simply no real way to do it other than through feel and experience.

With the bass side fret relief, I remember getting excited thinking I'd "cracked the code," only to carve relief into the bass side of the frets and have it sound exactly the same as it did before -- and occasionally worse, regardless of whether I leveled under string tension with the neck in a back bow, the strings off with the neck in a back bow, and using the Katana, a straight understring leveler, or a flat full length beam with the strings off.

I had some marginal successes, perhaps enough to make a video and get people thinking about the fact that the bass strings need more room to buzz -- but never anything specific enough to guarantee results. And admittedly I am concerned that even with knowledge about this new technique, I might not be able to develop the feel for it no matter how hard I try.

The only other time I've heard of the entire concept outside of Dave Collins -- not just the bass side, but the *entire fretboard* -- is on that "Big John" guy's website from Denton, TX. He mentioned the term "fretboard contouring," and when you described Dave's method, it all clicked: because that guy John had mentioned carving some 'negative' relief into the treble side, and relief into the bass side, so when string tension is applied, the treble side is "as straight as a laser beam" while the lower side has room to breathe without buzzing.

That's why I was curious about Dave's method and whether the treble side is straight or not. You said it isn't, so I'm sure John's method is a bit different, but a similar general concept applies: treating the fretboard as a whole, and "contouring the frets," so to speak, as opposed to simply treating one side -- the bass side only. And even treating the bass side only, I had thought I'd discovered the holy grail, because I never saw anyone else talk about it. Unfortunately I wasn't even able to implement my own idea successfully, but my friend was able to immediately after I told him, so at least someone benefited!

I'll be re-reading your post again. Again, deeply appreciated. I haven't tried this just yet, and knowing my past struggles with fretwork despite having done fretwork for many years, it may be a severe challenge. Just like my friend just intuitively 'gets' it, there may be no such thing as a "foolproof" method for some things -- especially when it comes to fretwork.

My current frets, stainless steel that I fretted it with recently, are down to around .053" and .050" from the stock .057" after all my experiments. I prefer them at maximum height, and while .050" isn't 'bad,' my preference is really for the most height I can get, so. I've refretted necks multiple times before in my efforts to master my leveling, so this may be no exception. Stainless is far harder to work with even than EVO, which I've done dozens of necks with, so I'm not looking forward to that, but. My OCD may demand it. Time will tell. But I'm gonna have to practice Dave's method on one of my own guitars sooner or later, and if I end up having to resort to doing another refret if I goof it up, so be it.

As for doing a compound radius, I use multiple radius blocks to get three radii on the board, then blend them together with a long beam following the string paths. 7.25", 9.5" and 12." I've done it that way for years but am reconsidering it lately, and am curious to see Dan's formula for doing a compound radius, which allegedly accounts for neck width from the first to last frets. I have it in his Guitar Repair book, but haven't tried it yet.

I'm wondering if my having to level the frets so much when doing my 7.25" to 12" (or greater) compound radius is a result of it simply 'asking too much.' By the time you get a 7.25" on there, it's so low on the ends, and if you're doing a 12" (or flatter) by the end, it's got a LONG way to go before being level with the 7.25" on the E string paths. The more drastic you want the difference in the compound, the lower the flatter area at the end has to be.

Anyway, the farthest I got yesterday while redoing the SS frets on my Strat was simply doing a full length "test level." Hit everything clean from 1-15, fallaway starting on 16. I might add a little more fallaway so it starts at 12 and call it a day for now before diving into trying Dave's method.

Sorry to be so scatter brained! Still processing everything you wrote, and if I have more questions, I'll be sure to keep them concise. Just wanted to get some ideas out here and again express deep appreciation for you sharing this information with me. I'll be excitedly mulling over your latest post, and the prior ones, once I get home.

Also: I have access to a 9x12" surface plate, but no experience using it. I'm assuming you'd need something the length of the tool you're desiring to level, but don't know anything about this. I've researched a lot online and haven't been able to find any good info on using surface plates, especially for long beams like these.

If it is worth investing in something more substantial, let me know and I'll consider it!

Yes the surface plate needs to be several inches longer, maybe diagonally too than the longest beam you want to level. When we made ours we went all the way to burnishing with 1200 paper and that was useless. Just take them to 400 and you are good to go. This can take an entire day by the way and is a bit of work.

No offense intended for Steve lots of luthiers often function in a very limited environment often unable to exchange notes with others working in the trade. Herb David RIP was one of these too as well as my friend. His methods were often Bull puckie and snake oil and he also at times damaged instruments needlessly and at times tragically. He was a file user too on fret work files that are not true in the precision sense. He had a large, steel block made for him with file teeth cut into it. But the thing only spans 4 - 6 frets making it useless.

Fret planes and boards need to be seen as the strings see them as a whole and strings are natural straightedges. When we check relief we use a string, it's already there and ready to go.

I appreciate your understanding on Dave's intellectual property and attribution to him if you share what I share with you is indeed appreciated.

A repeated theme of your posts is how much you have invested in time and struggles to get to where you are with fret work. It need not be that way Matt. I was nearly 50 when I went to Dave Collins and asked him to teach me. I'm a former corporate VP and I was willing to take out the trash and sweep the floor in exchange for learning and that's what we did, I apprenticed for three years.

So my experience has been different and I just damaged the very first guitar that I have ever damaged last week *&*&^%$%... Getting up from the seated position dialing in intonation in the playing position on a Strat and I hit the thing on the edge of my bench... Put a nice dent in it the kind that you are chasing your tail to make invisible.

So I did the only thing I know how and told the client, apologized, ripped up the bill, it was in for a set-up and asked if there is anything else I can do to make him feel whole. He wanted another free set-up in the future, deal. I felt terrible and Dave thinks that I am over 10,000 repaired guitars now with the three businesses that I have been associated with and this was my first and only damage to a client instrument.

Anyway you mentioned ruining frets and such. My experience because I had a mentor I also had some guidance on how to avoid issues and problems that might damage someone's valuable personal property.

If they ever have a Northwoods Seminar again (because of covid) you should go and I'll let you know if I hear that they are having it again. You will be around some of the best of the best and that's who presents there. It's a very good time if you can manage the hangover and don't run out of 34% THC pot. Seriously though you would really eat this stuff up. Collins is often a presenter as well and I think he did a glue presentation the last time they had it.

My business partner Dave Collins is very much an innovator. He's developed a forensic tool to verify the authenticity of many valuable vintage instruments by measuring their fret spacing against a database that he maintains with 400 other vintage instruments in it. Fret spacing was done with jigs and the jigs wear in time so we can verify a 58 Les Paul and have done exactly this with a metric, precision fret spacing checking them all down to .001".

He developed the Collins Saddle Mill that is designed to be vacuum clamped to the face of any acoustic guitar even a million dollar one... and mill the saddle slot in the saddle on the guitar. Martin had a bad jig in the early 70's and countless 18s, 28s, 35s, etc went into the world with the saddle a little off. Many of these are still owned by the original owner and if all they do is cowboy chords they won't notice the intonation issues. If they play Kashmir they most certainly will

We have a fret buffer that Dave created and invented after going with author John Thomas to Parson's Street Gibson and going though old tooling and such. We don't use sand paper on our frets Matt we go to a special buffer with four small abrasive wheels. The sanding the frets stage takes us 5 minutes, total on the buffer. In our classes we also teach old school fret sanding for folks who don't build their own Collins Fret Buffer.

He also designed and we use countless small cauls and jigs with rare earth magnets or other tech that makes this stuff work for us very well.

And he's writing an article about a definitive guide to the hardness of various fret wire. He built a machine that can fret a fret as many times as you tell it to. Preliminary results are also fascinating and I will share one thing that we did not expect. EVO is not in between stainless and nickel silver it's nearly as hard as stainless. I didn't expect that in that it seems to work much easier to me than stainless.

I bring all this up because it really helped me nearly two decades ago learn Lutherie to be working with someone else and I think that you would enjoy this AND have many of the questions that you have asked answered along the way in the process.

Anyway happy to help. I jsut got home and went in at 4:00 AM this morning to do a PRS and a Reverend. We are swamped and have a full stop on taking in anything but simple set-ups. We have some famous clients so we still take in their stuff, always but for everyone else it's waiting list time.

Oh yeah, Collins also invented a headstock jig that works great and results in invisible headstock break repairs.

He's only 45 - 46 can't remember and may be contributing to the Lutherie world for a long time to come too, hopefully!! He also has a great dog, Kibbeh who is my pal.

Hey guys! OP here. I got busy and failed to check back in. I figured I had seen the last of the replies.

I just read all of this and I am so glad to see this thread still going. These are the exact concepts and info I am looking for and just wanted to say that I really appreciate all of the input. I'm always trying to work more precision into my fretwork and the things Hesh has talked about, on this thread and others, have had (and continue to have) a very positive impact on my work.

I'll be checking back in more often.

_________________
"I'm not going to say that perfection has never been achieved. However, if it has, it probably went unnoticed due to it's lack of character."

One of Steve's sayings is "One oh s**t erases a thousand attaboys."

I've made some mistakes that customers were not forgiving about, and the primary one I remember (out of two), I don't even know how it happened. My best guess is the small ding came from some errant object on my workbench. Ever since then I elevate all instruments above my workbench before working on them with separate blocks. I told him right away and said I could probably touch it up, but I didn't want to risk making it worse. Read me the riot act and never came back. So I definitely feel you on the feeling terrible part. I take great care with all the jobs that come in and it is devastating when a mistake happens, as you go so far out of your way to make sure it doesn't happen, and it gives the appearance of being careless or irresponsible when the reality is the total opposite!

Very similar for Steve at his last gig; not including independent walk-ins or the decades prior, he racked up over 15,000 repairs with a grand total of zero complaints. He's always been big about the customer "wow" factor and never handing anything back in less than spectacular condition, and multiple times has told me the importance of reputation: it's everything.

There are a few local guys around here that pass off shoddy work, and word gets around quick. And have definitely done more than my share of fixing screwups by other techs, such as filling a rosewood board that had been gowed up by another "really reputable luthier," and refretting it with EVO wire. The guy actually cried when he opened up the case and saw it, and that's what I live for. His wife had gotten it for him for their 17th anniversary, and when he had it refretted by this other tech, he not only put in the wrong fret size, but had gowed up the entire fingerboard.

And it gets worse: the frets weren't even level. So when the guy brought it back and asked if he could at least get the frets leveled, he flat filed them, barely polished them out, gowed up the fingerboard even worse, and charged him another 80 dollars. Grand total for everything was close to 500 and it was completely botched.

The customer said he just felt sick every time he looked at the guitar, and three other techs he took it to said the neck would have to be replaced. They didn't want or didn't know how to deal with it. It had tremendous sentimental value and he didn't want to replace it, but everyone was considering it a lost cause.

And the EVO frets looked great. He didn't even know they existed, but I pitched it to him after seeing the gold hardware. This was a one-off custom shop Telecaster, looked great -- and I was especially motivated knowing how much it meant to him. The best part is he wasn't expecting much or thought it was going to be a "best of a bad situation" scenario, but when I got it done I was hearing from him for another three months on a regular basis about how it didn't play that good when it was new, he was so grateful for the work, etc.

That kinda stuff is what reminds me it's all worth it.

Tangent aside, lots of experimenting lately. I've had some repairs come in which is actually a welcome break from obsessing over the frets on my main Strat. On my other Strat, I had gotten the relief on the bass side to .008", with the rest of the neck at .000". I did that one maybe two years ago, and while it could still be even better, it's better than my current one, where I haven't carved anywhere near that much relief into the frets yet.

Really has me thinking. One of my issues is I have a disability in my fretting hand, and I heavily prefer the feel of a dead straight neck with criminally low action. Basically, NO neck relief at all, dead straight, with slightly below 2/64" and 3/64" action at the 12th fret. I have a very light touch, and it's *almost* there, but I want to really think about this before I start leveling even more relief into the bass side.

I still have to review Dave's method that you mentioned, and the purpose and method of carving the treble side of the frets. For now I'm still obsessed with the Low E and A strings. On my older Strat I had simply put the neck into a back bow with the truss rod, then used a full length beam to level. Mastering the bowing the neck by pressing the headstock down will take some time, but perhaps that will work better.

But I think for such low action with a dead straight neck, the relief needed to be carved into the frets may need to be significant. I was surprised to see .008" I had carved in on my other Strat, but it has a lot less buzz than this one and is much closer to being "in the clear."

The fallaway does seem to help too. Very much so. I'm applying what you said and treating frets 1-12 and frets 12-end as two separate planes. Applying the tape to the leveler itself also is working great. Previously I was taping over the fret, and it seems to work more smoothly with the tape over the actual leveler. I'm using that teflon cloth tape I mentioned, which is extremely durable and slippery and shows no signs of wear.

Great stuff. I'm going to be going over all of this again...and again. And I really appreciate it! This has been a great discussion, and it's not over. I'll have more thoughts the more I experiment.

One thing I did yesterday was profile a Schecter with a decent, almost buzz-free Low E. Straight edged it, and measured under every single fret with a feeler gauge, to build a profile of the relief under that string specifically.

@Hesh

Been trying out the technique you described and my only thought is I'm simply not going into enough of a back bow -- perhaps. I've also been experimenting with the aforementioned methods I've been using for a couple years now to achieve the same goal: extra relief carved into the frets on the bass side.

I will say, the 1st and 2nd frets improving but still being buzzy is a telltale sign that the frets need more relief carved into them. But it is a bit unnerving to remove more material than may be necessary. I'm thinking that extra relief carving may be required, but the dreaded "tail chasing" is unnerving...removing more material and having the buzz be just as bad.

The only two variables here are the amount of back bow when leveling full-length on the bass side, and fallaway. I haven't attempted Dave's complete method yet, with the treble and middle leveling you mentioned -- I'm hyperfixating on that accursed Low E string!

On my other Strat I did a couple years ago, there is appreciably more relief, as seen by using the Low E as a straightedge, then any other string as a straightedge. They're all just about dead flat, but the Low E string alone has about .007" of relief. That one is better in the buzzing department than my current Strat, but I don't want to end up "tail chasing" and putting the neck into an arbitrary amount of back bow, leveling, and having it buzz just as bad.

Maybe the real solution is to carve it into the fretboard, as you mentioned, so not as much needs to be removed from the frets. In reality here I've only removed a couple thousandths so far, so it's not much, but I'm hesitant about going farther. I will say the "telltale sign" is the 1st and 2nd frets are still buzzy. Better, but still buzzy. They're barely touched at all by the full length leveling, as they're my signal to "stop" when carving relief. So if they're still buzzy, it signifies more of a relief carving is needed. Just unsettling as I'd like to preserve as much material as possible.

And the Collins' fret buffer sounds divine. Wish I had a setup like that! I gave up tonight on recrowning and polishing these SS frets. Calling it a night. I'm using a 3 corner bastard file to crown so it doesn't take forever (finishing with a smooth cut 3 corner file and am very careful by the end, sometimes I'll resort to the Center Z file, but it feels almost worthless as it takes forever to cut, at least in my experience), and for polishing, I do them 1 at a time with a fret guard and Fret Erasers from Stewmac.

They do seem to come out good, but it takes *forever.* Got to fret 12 and decided I'll do the rest tomorrow if I have time. Crowning severely leveled SS frets is bad enough, but the polishing is pretty bad too. Speeding that along sounds like a dream. Fretwork is so labor intensive and time consuming, anything that saves time and your hands sounds like a miracle to me.

If frets 1 & 2 are buzzing then that is the nut slot being too low, not relief.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Sorry Matt for the delay I just saw this and was in the hospital for heart issues but I'm home now. I even went to work this morning anyway and repaired three guitars Pretty dumb eh

OK I didn't have to get far and Steve nailed it, Steve has also been to our classes. If fret one or two are buzzy as Steve said the nut slot is too low.

But I can't wrap my head around what you process and it all seems as if you focus on individual maladies which if your system is decent will never even happen.

It seems as if you chase individual issues when with fret work the entire point of our method and treating the fret plane as a whole, always is that a string, a natural straight edge will ring clear and true anywhere on the neck WHEN the instrument it properly set-up too and this very much includes the nut slots.

Not being critical just indicating that I can only comment on what I share with you and what I know. What you do is foreign to me and with no offense intended we do not have any of the issues that you seem to struggle with.

If you fret say the high e between the 2nd and 3rd and hold it fretted and then observe the gap, if any of the same sting over the 1st string crown this is how you can tell if the nut slot is too low. If there is no gap, it's too low, period. If there is any buzzing on the string open it's too low too. Of course this is also with the truss rod adjusted properly first and the action in spec. There are specs by the way.

Regarding stainless it's not much different just a bit harder because of the wire and more time consuming. Many shops charge more for stainless but we don't it's all the same with the method we use to us, just a bit harder and indeed more tiring.

If it's a stainless refret we mill the fret board exactly as I described for a fret dress so the board has the shape. As such the stainless frets need only the slightest kiss of the leveling beam and better yet recrowning is fast, easy and minimally required.

Can't comment on anything but how I do fret work because that's all I know and it works fantastic for me. Again I go though the drill and they always, always come out fine and play like a dream. And ultimately that's the goal and it also makes it all predictable too in terms of time, costs, opportunity costs, etc.

Predictability is everything in Lutherie repair work if you want to remain in business.

Again with no offense intended I don't want to confuse the forum here and there are people reading this who wanted to take our classes and then we stopped offering them. But some of the things I read from you make me wonder why you are doing what you do and how you learned it because you are chasing your tail man. This is not complicated at all and predictable, successful results are achieved by us and others who use this method now too every day.

Anyway I can help you with what we do and how we do it but as far as commenting on your method I'm staying out it and don't want to confuse others either.

Wow, those are some lengthy posts.

They are indeed. I got irritated I had to read so much and I'm one of the worst offenders.