Resource thread; Anything Neck construction and maintenance related.

chilipeppermaniac

chilipeppermaniac

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After I recently broke a string on my new to me USED '07 Flying V, Faded Cherry. After looking over the frets, I decided not to just buy a single High E and swap it back on and keep chugging. Instead, I decided to ask some advice and to basically clean the fretboard, clean and preserve/ treat etc the neck, body and give the guitar a good once over not that it is 19 years old. Cleaning and treating the guitar is fairly simple, but I want to begin this thread with all things frets

I messaged smitty, DonO, thatbastarddon, Col Mustard, and a few others. Once I got their advice on tools and chemicals, I continued my homework on necks, frets and how to service and maintain them. So, here is a start on what I found. I'd like to say that a lot can be achieved with a minimum of cash outlay. Conversely, increased numbers of jobs can be done if one adds and learns to use the many tools that are available to today's players, luthiers.


 
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Sad part is all the people that did my guitar work are dead now .
2016 : bid on a 1965 SG Standard frets were trashed and the binding trashed
I got the tools for stainless frets cost more but work better the neck was twisted sanded it down straight then burnished
the fret board finding the exact binding was not easy. Next was a 1960 Fender strat neck not much fret left and the nut was broken
I leveled the frets crowned and made a new nut out of ivory saved next time I will have to replace the frets.
 
Steve, I know it is hard losing friends and good mechanics.

I have an excellent Luthier in Baltimore who did my bone nut on my Epiphone LP. During the job, he told me that he glued in my loose frets that aren't always tight when Epi does them. What I got back was basically my $350 guitar plus nut and setup. With my T Tops and luthier work, it turned into an LP STD as good as or better than a base model Gibson LP.
 
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So, today I went ahead and bought a few tools to get me started in prepping to do a crowning and polishing the frets on my Faded V.

A Nicholson Triangle Fine file, and a small luthier kit of a notched straight edge, fret rocker and some abrasive blocks, and a fret crowning file.
I plan to try my hand at mastering both the triangle file and dedicated crowning file to see which works best for the frets and which I seem to gain proficiency with the best.

Some other tools that I may make for myself and or to buy from places like MusicNomad etc, are leveling sanding beams, radius gauges, feeler gauges, string height gauges etc. These items will likely see more use on my guitar necks that are in worse shape frets wise, divots, high, low spots and such.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
So, today I went ahead and bought a few tools to get me started in prepping to do a crowning and polishing the frets on my Faded V.

A Nicholson Triangle Fine file, and a small luthier kit of a notched straight edge, fret rocker and some abrasive blocks, and a fret crowning file.
I plan to try my hand at mastering both the triangle file and dedicated crowning file to see which works best for the frets and which I seem to gain proficiency with the best.

Some other tools that I may make for myself and or to buy from places like MusicNomad etc, are leveling sanding beams, radius gauges, feeler gauges, string height gauges etc. These items will likely see more use on my guitar necks that are in worse shape frets wise, divots, high, low spots and such.
Click to expand...
Whether working on guitars…. Furniture…. Or automotive. Proper tools always makes the job easier.
 
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As I posted above. "These items will likely see more use on my guitar necks that are in worse shape frets wise, divots, high, low spots and such."

All that has brought me to make this thread began when I broke the High E string on my V. As I was cleaning the fretboard and looking things over, I removed all the strings, bridge and tail piece. When I examined the bridge, I noticed something really ODD.

I know it is no big deal, but the bridge had what all looked like matching saddle adjustment screws, 5 of the 6 had the slot in the screw head, but I think it was the D or G screw has no slot. It looks essentially like a dome shaped bald head.
 
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