Re-fret all or just what's needed?

[YamahaGuy]

Originally Posted by Frozen Rat

I might re-fret a used guitar I bought. Question is, should I just replace the frets that are dented or replace the whole set so they all match? I suppose if the others are a little low too, they would end up low against the new ones (thing is I can't tell; they seem normal to the touch) and the new ones would have to be leveled down. My second question is, what do you think I would have to pay?

The guitar in questions: Gibson Songwriter Deluxe Custom with ebony FB. Frets 1-5 have slight dents under the B string. As an aside, what in the world was the previous owner playing that (s)he wore a slight groove under just that string on the first five frets? The only thing I can think of is that (s)he played the same blues tune nightly, and it required a lot of b-bends.

Use of capos is the likely culprit of the dents on frets 1-5. I'm in the play it unless it buzzes camp. A re-fret could cost up to $250. I've had to level frets on a couple of my guitars a couple times and the frets still have plenty of life in them. Crowning the frets leaves them susceptible to getting more easily dented.

[Moocheng]

How does it play ?

sometimes guitars can play pretty good inspite of partially worn frets, within reason of course.

Originally Posted by Moocheng

How does it play ?

sometimes guitars can play pretty good inspite of partially worn frets, within reason of course.

Honestly, it plays just fine. When I play I don't notice anything amiss. So, yeah, I got a little ahead of myself I think. No refret until I happen to wear the frets down myself to the point where it's a problem.

[Big Band Guitar]

If it were me I would level and crown the frets and see how it comes out. It's not hard to do. Then if you screw it up have refret it.

[StevenL]

I just had 2 guitars refretted. The tech told me he would NOT do a partial refret because ... math, neck tension, blah, blah. Since nobody within 500 miles of me does this kind of work apparently, and the guy was recommended highly by the local music store, I bit the bullet and took the 4 hour drive, twice. $375 each. ouch. One of them only really needed 1-5 done. So some people will do a partial; some won't. I think it's mostly to do with making money. Of course.

The fret work seemed ok on both, but he replaced a saddle on one and screwed up the intonation. The guitar is essentially ruined until I can get somebody to fix it. He also replaced a nut on another guitar and slotted too low on all the strings but one.

Point: be very careful choosing someone to do your work. Some will BS you and some are just plain incompetent, even ones with a 'reputation'.

And I agree with the view of playing until it goes noticeably bad.

[Truckjohn]

Depending on how low too low it is - you can pop the nut out and slip a little slice of notebook paper under it to see if its better... That will raise the strings 0.003". If that works - try a little slice of aluminum beer/soda can.. Its about the same thicknes. 1 little teeny dot of white glue on the nut and 1 little teeny dot of white glue on the shim. Reassemble with strings and off you go.. That should get you by till you can have it properly shimmed up or a new one made.

On the saddle... Before you do anything crazy - flip it around and make sure he didn't just insert it backwards by mistake. It happens to the best of us.... I like to mark the bottoms of my saddles with a black magic marker dot on the low E string end...

[HodgdonExtreme]

I bought a mid 90s Taylor jumbo awhile back that was badly in need of a refret. It was almost unplayable on on the first 5 or 6 frets.

Really strange feeling when your finger is pressed hard down onto the fretboard but you still can't get the string to ring out nicely. I was expecting my guitar tech (who has a great reputation) to want to do a full refret, but he suggested just the first 7 or 8. I think he ended up doing 7. It totally resurrected the guitar.

That said, when it comes time for significant fretwork on one of my "keeper" guitars - I'll do them ALL with stainless.

The key is identifying a solid tech to do the work. Unfortunately my local guy won't do stainless - so I'll have to send it off to somebody when it comes to that...

Originally Posted by Truckjohn

On the saddle... Before you do anything crazy - flip it around and make sure he didn't just insert it backwards by mistake. It happens to the best of us.... I like to mark the bottoms of my saddles with a black magic marker dot on the low E string end...

If the previous owner had done that the compensated B-string section would be under the A string and I'd have spotted that straight off. I fashioned a new saddle tonight using a Taylor bone saddle. It was a smidge too long so I shortened it and it was a shade too thick too. I didn't like the height so I took 2/64ths off the bottom and now my e/E strings are 6/64th and 4.5/64ths. Pretty much factory standard and it plays just like it should and sounds really nice. I had swapped out a different saddle right off when I got it with one I made a couple years back for a Yamaha, but it was too thin and the high E bit was just a bit too low so that it fretted out on the 15th fret when the string was fitted at the 14th. That saddle was just to get my by until tonight when I had time to do it right.

The nut is fine, the string clearances at the 1st fret are perfect when I capo the 3rd fret. Most are between .003 and .006.

I got that pick guard removed too and cleaned everything up (the pickguard was lifting on the edges, a common songwriter problem).

I got some of the glue off around the soundhole (not glue from the pickguard, something nastier), but where it's thick I haven't managed to lift it all just yet. I need something maybe a bit more powerful than Naptha.

Originally Posted by HodgdonExtreme

That said, when it comes time for significant fretwork on one of my "keeper" guitars - I'll do them ALL with stainless.

The key is identifying a solid tech to do the work. Unfortunately my local guy won't do stainless - so I'll have to send it off to somebody when it comes to that...

Does stainless change the sound?

And yes, finding someone I trust is (well, was) going to be a big problem. I'm also impatient, so waiting for the work to get done would have been hard for me. I wonder if I could learn how to do it myself...

[HodgdonExtreme]

Originally Posted by Frozen Rat

Does stainless change the sound?

And yes, finding someone I trust is (well, was) going to be a big problem. I'm also impatient, so waiting for the work to get done would have been hard for me. I wonder if I could learn how to do it myself...

I haven't had the opportunity to do a before/after of a guitar with nickel-silver frets upgraded to stainless - so I can't give an experienced opinion about the sound. Logic tells me that any change would have to be SLIGHT. I did read somewhere where Taylor said they tried stainless and didn't like the tone. Who knows? I can't see where it would be advantageous for them to make fretting guitars more difficult for themselves. They already sell all the guitars they can make for lots of money. They have such a good reputation already, they don't need to do anything to "set themselves apart".

As an aside: I've just begun researching carbon fibre guitars (after playing my first one a week or so ago). Turns out that ALL the CF guitar makers except one equip their guitars with stainless frets. Apparently, it's because the "image" of a CFG is durability and stability - so stainless frets just kind of jive with that mentality - the advantage to stainless is you'll never ever ever wear them out - which sounds ideal to me.

Anyway, I've played a couple guitars with stainless that I thought sounded beautiful.

Regarding doing it yourself - NO WAY!

I'm a very hands on, DIY project oriented kinda guy, and I considered the concept of DIYing my refret for about 20 minutes until I did a little googling to see what it would take to do it. Yikes! To do a good job of it, you need several hundred dollars of specialty tools, and I suspect a bunch of poor, mediocre and decent fret jobs under your belt.

[Ricky Nelson]

Cool post, thanks. And thanks for all the reply's. I haven't refretted anything. A friend of mine refretted his J-45 and I thought the result was awful. Maybe they weren't dressed properly or something, but he drove a long way to this supposedly terrific luthier. It has made me wary and I have postponed that work until absolutely necessary.
Thanks
RNF

[zavaletas]

One factor that also to be considered, pulling frets out runs some risks of taking some chips of wood with them. While such things can be repaired... the more frets are replaced the more likely this is too occur.

[jaybones]

I would take it to a competent luthier and see if they need replaced or can be crowned or dressed first.

Originally Posted by Ricky Nelson

Cool post, thanks. And thanks for all the reply's. I haven't refretted anything. A friend of mine refretted his J-45 and I thought the result was awful. Maybe they weren't dressed properly or something, but he drove a long way to this supposedly terrific luthier. It has made me wary and I have postponed that work until absolutely necessary.
Thanks
RNF

Yes, you hear these kinds of stories all the time.

After playing the guitar more, I noticed on certain bends the grooves were indeed felt. On full bends I'd get a bit of a bump. But the worst thing I discovered today was that the fretboard/neck is slightly warped. I discovered this when I played around with the action and got buzzing in weird places. I had to put a lot of relief in the neck and use the tallest saddle to eliminated all the buzzing. I hadn't noticed it prior because it happens mainly on open notes, but also in a few spots on fretted notes. Yet the nut seemed fine. It was then I sighted down the barrel, so to speak, and yep, it wasn't quite straight.

That was it for me. I don't feel comfortable doing a re-fret, and I sure don't know how to fix a warped neck. I figure it needs to be re-radiused. It was with a heavy heart that I handed it back to GC today. Such a beautiful sounding instrument despite all that, but too much a mess in too many other ways even for me, a guy who can fix most things (probably even this, with slow deliberation, were it not for the cost). I'm not put off buying used, but this is an illustration of how doing so can be fraught with disappointment.

I went ahead and used the money I got back to buy from an individual this time. We'll see how that goes.