Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi All

First post here.

I’m a bit of a noob with regards to the big skills of luthiery but have been setting guitars up for a few years now and have a nice little client base but I want to expand my knowledge.

As such I’ve recently attempted two re-frets on squire necks with Dunlop 6105 fret wire. They’re my own necks and were acquired with the idea that I’d practice.

Anyhow, I’m quite happy with how they’ve turned out but have a small issue with both which I can’t quite understand.

I can bend up a whole tone on all the three higher strings with a low action (0.1mm lower than Fender specs) BUT I need to have the action at Fender spec on the high E in order to get a tone and a half bend to ring out without choking. I’ve levelled, re-crowned and polished the frets on one of them three times now but I can’t get the result I’m looking for.

The fretboard radius is 9.5” and I didn’t plane the boards before refretting. I know that this action is possible on a standard US made Fender as I have one with the exact setup with no choking issues. I know I’m bending the string to more than most people do but it should be possible.

Any ideas of what I may have done wrong?

Thanks

Sacha

Hi Sacha and welome to the forum.

Fender style bolt-on necks invariably either have or develop a bit of a ski ramp with the frets over where the neck bolts on to the body.

For low action the ski ramp has to be eliminated and milled away. Getting the ski ramp area, over the body level with the rest of the frets is usually not good enough and this means that we need to have two planes in the geometry of the frets as the strings see them.

More specifically frets 1 - 12 are leveled in the same plane with a long leveling beam that can span all of the frets including after the 12th. If you mark the fret tops (I use red magic marker) and after adjusting the truss rod for as level as you can get if the beam hits frets after the 12th this will verify what I suspect and the issue that needs to be resolved no fall away.

Fall-away is the idea that the frets after the 12th gently and gradually fall-away from the primary fret plane established with that long beam from the 1st to the 12th. Often we have to mill down the 13th to the last first to not have the long beam hit there when doing the 1st through the 12th.

I use a short beam or a file with tape on one end and I let the tape ride on the crown of the 12th as I mill away the ski ramp in the frets beyond the 12th to the last. It's way easier to do this off the neck too.

Choking out notes when bending is an indication of only a few possibilities 1) loose and proud frets 2) unlevel frets and 3) the dreaded ski ramp thing as described above.

Since you are taking the action below Fender's spec great fret work is going to be required.

Hope something here is helpful to you and again welcome aboard.

Wow Hesh!!! I would never have ever considered that and it makes total sense!!!

The levelling I've done is with a beam the same length of the fret board so from what I understand I need to bring the frets passed the 12 fret (13 - 21) to a height that is lower than 1 - 12. Is that correct?

Cheers

Sacha

The 9.5" radius puts a limit on bends, especially with low action.

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Yup. It's like you're bending the string over a hill. Gotta hit somewhere in the arc.

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

Thanks for all the replies guys, I brought down the frets (12 - 21) last night and wow!! All sorted feels like a perfect action for me, low with minimal buzz and clear bends! Now i'll need to do the other neck.

Looking at these necks, they are slab rosewood on one piece maple with no skunk strip, thinking back now that I know of this issue I don't think I've never seen a ski-ramp type issue on one piece maple necks. has anyone ever seen it on one piece maple necks? From logic alone I'd assume that it's less likely on one piece maple bolt on neck (not impossible mind) as they are sturdier due to being one piece (aside from the skunk stripe). Especially quartersawn. Seems to reinforce the stability claims laid on quarter sawn necks.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Maple necks have ski ramps too, wish they didn't but we see the ski ramp on likely any Fender style, bolt-on neck.

For your earlier question the beam that you have is a bit long for how we level and induce fall away. So what you need is a beam that spans 1 - 12 and is perfectly level. Then you need another beam that spans 12 through the last to mill in the fall away.

Now I use a beam most of the time that will span the entire neck so you could use the one that you have as well so long as it's perfectly flat. Ours are checked and corrected on a certified surface plate.

The process in a nut shell is to adjust the truss rod so the neck is as straight as possible. We use red magic marker on the fret tops to see where we are hitting. Often if not usually the beam will be hitting some of the last frets preventing it from making full contact with all frets. This is the ski ramp and a visual indicator of it's existence.

This is when I deploy the short beam with 80 grit on it and a piece of masking tape on one end that rides on the 12th fret not removing material from the 12th. I mill away frets over the body until remarking all of the frets with marker and using the long beam the long beam no longer hits the 13th through the last.

Next you use the long beam again with marker until you are making contact with all frets 1 - 12, no exceptions. Hitting the 13, 14 etc. is no biggie either so long as you now have a gradual, progressive "fall-away" after the 12th.

I use 80 grit for major material removal such as the extension/body frets then I follow-up with 120 and lastly 220 so as to remove most if not all of the scratches from the fret tops. This means changing paper on the beam or having more dedicated beams.

At this point the frets are recrowned and you can use marker again. The goal is to create a gentle and uniform crown but not hit the marker on the very top of the fret so as to not lose the level set that we achieved. What you will see when crowning is a line forming that represents the top of the fret crown and this line needs to be preserved for the level set to be preserved.

Next I shape my fret ends and if the board is nasty I scrape it with a single edged razor. If the board is maple and has finish on it no scraping and the entire board needs to be taped off for the entire process to protect the finish.

Now comes the old school method of using 320 folded 4 times and pointed downward like that old playing card that we clipped in our bike spokes.... to make motor sounds. You want to be sanding the sides of the frets to remove scratches and hit the ends too to remove scratches.

Then comes the 400, 600, 1000, etc to get the polished look. We have a one of a kind fret buffer that Dave Collins designed so after 320 grit we take the neck to the "wheels" and in a few minutes have a super high polish.

Hope something here helps. The tighter radius Fender necks can choke out bends but it's more often the case that the fret plane is not as I am describing with fall-away and/or the set-up is too low for the quality of the level set of the neck.

By the way this method creates a compound radius, a desirable thing, and further reduces the perils of the tight radius neck.

Congrats to you too on what you are trying to accomplish and how you went at it. You are doing great!