Fret dress or replace

[Gary in MO]

I bought a used 2015 314ce

This guitar sounds wonderful. It took me 4 tries at a 300 series Taylor to find this one. I bought off of GC and actually took it back because of the fret condition. I bought another one (my 4th try) but it was not a good sounding 314 and returned it and rebought this one because of the tone. Just stellar to me.

First 3 frets are grooved on B and high E.

Curious if someone knowledgeable can give me their opinion on replacing the first 3 frets and then dress frets or just level and dress as is. My thoughts are to level and dress as is will bring all of the frets down to the deepest groove height. I hope pictures will help if I can get them posted. Thanks

[Gary in MO]

By the way, the guitar has no fret buzz yet.

But there is some interference performing pulloffs on high E on those first few frets.

[hubcapsc]

A good tech can replace all or as many of your frets as needed.
Mike Weems (and probably a whole bunch of other techs) keeps
stashes of the perfect upper frets from whole refrets, and replaced
the first eight or ten frets on my 57 Country Western with perfectly
matching frets from his stash...

-Mike

[PaulVA]

I would just replace the worn ones, that way you keep full fret height all over the fretboard, for me that makes the playability better.

[Gary in MO]

Thanks - that’s what I figured but fingers were crossed.

I’m trying to figure out how much I’ll have in this guitar after that. I have 45 day return with GC. When I bought this guitar the check out guy told me to get the Pro Coverage and then they’ll fix it. Not sure if I want them replacing frets though. If this guitar didn’t sound so good I’d pack it back up for sure. I’ve played a lot of guitars these past few months and this one just has something special where everything went together well.

But do I want to put $300 more in it or $129 if I let GC repair it? Have to noodle on that a bit.

Thanks

[PaulVA]

A partial refret of only 3 frets or so should be a lot less than $300, so you may want to shop around and get someone both qualified and reasonable on price. As you say, no hurry, so you have time to do some diligence on the refret approach. Good luck!

[redir]

Those are pretty deep. Partial refret looks to be in order here as long as the rest of the frets are good.

[bnjp]

More and more, i think the normal responsible repair is a partial refret. It may cost $100 more but it seems wrong for the instrument to me to lower all the frets to meet the lowest groove on the six or so worn ones.

[redir]

Originally Posted by bnjp

More and more, i think the normal responsible repair is a partial refret. It may cost $100 more but it seems wrong for the instrument to me to lower all the frets to meet the lowest groove on the six or so worn ones.

I think you mean total refret?

I normally tend to agree but there are some players that really do wear out the cowboy chord frets so much because they only play there that it makes it reasonable.

When I was doing repairs for several of the music stores in my area I had one guy come in with fret problems. I live in bluegrass country and this guy no doubt was a boom chucka boom cowboy chord player as he wore the hell out of the first few frets. The rest of the frets were perfect. I did a partial refret on it and about two months later the guy came in all mad that it "wasn't done right" because he wore those frets right out again.

But yeah I'd say 90% of the time you need a total refret but there are definitely some cases where a partial is in order.

[martingitdave]

I think a partial refret would be a prudent suggestion if the rest of the frets look new.

[nikpearson]

It’s not a lot of work for a skilled tech or luthier. I’m guessing it would be 30-45 minutes to remove the worn frets, replace them, level, re-crown. Any other setup work needed would obviously add time and cost. I’d charge £100 ($125) for this partial refret.

If you like the guitar this is a small additional outlay and you’ll have a great playing guitar for the next few years at least.