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Do I need a refret?
- Thread starter Joe Geni
- Start date
You're almost in fretted fretless territory. Get new frets and it should out live you
Remains of a past hack fret leveling. Frets are considered consumables, like strings, stuff wears out. +1 on a seasoned Pro to refret it. Thats a sweet old bass, get a Fenderite to restore it to playing glory.
Doesn’t look like normal fret wear to me looks like someone did a poor job of trying to perform a fret level and crown. Refret or don’t that’s your decision.
1 mm is .039" - the new frets I get on my Warmoth necks are .043" high - 1 mm is plenty of fret height, if they're dressed right. You could get by with half that if they've been dressed well.
The OP doesn't really have frets anymore - that thing needed new frets a LONG time ago.
Lol. My precision had these low frets once. Kind of liked the fast feel. I,m sure you can play fretless blindfolded by now.
Curious as to how one would pull this off. I've seen pics of the "treadle" device used for fret installation.
Riis
Agree. I have never seen fret wear edge to edge! Someone ground them down. And to have almost 100% wear above the 7th fret?
We’ll they’ve certainly been levelled, which would bring them down to the height of the lowest fret wherever it happened to be on the fingerboard. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that this has been played hard with roundwounds and levelled several times (or just once drastically!
)
I can't believe how even they are, from side to side. I was expecting grooves from string wear.
I'd say that was a close to being fretless as a fretted bass can get. These frets aren't worn they've been filed down.
The action looks high. If the sound is good, maybe a set up would fix your problems?
The action looks high. If the sound is good, maybe a set up would fix your problems?
I disagree some say the frets must have been leveled because they are so even. My precision had the same flat frets. It took 20 years and owning one bass.
I can’t say I’ve done it but in one of Dan Earlewine’s books he describes driving the fret out the way it was installed. Apparently if you can get enough of the end started out you can grab it with pullers and slide it the rest of the way out. According to Dan, fender did that up to 1980 or 82.
Yes
Take it to someone VERY good and get ready to invest a bit of money. This is not something you want to cheap out on.
A great fret job is the only real playable difference between “boutique” instruments and everything else.
Get a great refret and you will have an awesome bass for years to come.
Take it to someone VERY good and get ready to invest a bit of money. This is not something you want to cheap out on.
A great fret job is the only real playable difference between “boutique” instruments and everything else.
Get a great refret and you will have an awesome bass for years to come.
Time To Refret - Here is why...
The surface of the fret should have enough material so you can have a crown. The crown is the high center of the fret that provides precise intonation. When you have a flat fret, there is no crown and there is no more material left on the existing fret to sculpt a new crown. It's time to gitter done!
BTW- strings being far away from the fingerboard is a separate issue. The truss rod needs to be adjusted and/or perhaps the neck needs to be shimmed. Any luthier qualified to do a re-fret job will assess what has to happen with the truss and neck angle.
The surface of the fret should have enough material so you can have a crown. The crown is the high center of the fret that provides precise intonation. When you have a flat fret, there is no crown and there is no more material left on the existing fret to sculpt a new crown. It's time to gitter done!
BTW- strings being far away from the fingerboard is a separate issue. The truss rod needs to be adjusted and/or perhaps the neck needs to be shimmed. Any luthier qualified to do a re-fret job will assess what has to happen with the truss and neck angle.
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buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
All natural fret wear I've seen was concentrated under the string.
Before I would refret it, I would want to know why the strings are that far away from the fingerboard. Did you adjust it that way so the strings don’t buzz or has it always been that way. From your picture it looks like your string height is more than twice of my PB. I’m not seeing a lot of fret wear. It may just need a truss Rod adjustment, a simple fix.
That's not fret wear. Someone did that on purpose from some reason.
