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filing down frets

4

4StringedFreak

May 26, 2007
48
0
36
#1
Ok, here is my story..I am currently giveing one of my basses a new paint job for my art class,when i seen its neck laying on my bedroom floor, and thought..could i make this a fretless?
I have read some of the posts made about removing frets, and ive decided not to take this rout due to the time, effort, and the fact that this old bass just isnt worth it..
which brings me to my question...can I simply file down the frets, and make them flush with the finger board? Or even just file them a little, to make it closer to a fretless?

thanks for the time
 
#5
ehque said:
also, if you file them down completely, on a hot day, they will rise up and bite your ass, cos metal expands faster than wood.

If you file it down on a hot day, then, on a cold day, you'll have small indentations in your neck. Again, cos of the expansion thing.
Click to expand...
Short answer: wrong, you've got it backwards. Long answer: it's more complex than that.

Wood has a very low thermal expansion coefficient in the longitudinal direction only, about 1/3 that of brass (the material of nickel silver frets). But it has high expansion in the radial and tangential directions, 2-3x that of brass. For a quartersawn fretboard, you'd be concerned about tangential expansion, and for a flatsawn one you'd be concerned about radial expansion. So either way, it reacts more than the fret, not less.

But overall, you might be even more concerned with expansion/contraction due to humidity changes than from temperature.


People have done the sand down the frets thing and been happy with it. In the long run it may be less desirable than a wood or plastic fill-in, because wood or plastic material will wear more evenly with the rest of the board than will metal, which will eventually start to appear as frets again, with scalloped-out wood in between.


4StringedFreak said:
Or even just file them a little, to make it closer to a fretless?
Click to expand...

As far as sanding the frets partially, it may make it feel more like a fretless to you, but unless you go all the way to produce a fully flat surface, it will not sound like a fretless.
 
#13
+1 on the end nippers....

but here's a tip....grind down the jaws of the nippers (not the edge, the side)...so that the contact point is at the extreme end of tool...

that way, when you place the nippers against the fretboard, the jaws go in under the fre and not into the side of the fret...

do you understand what I mean?
 
#15
4StringedFreak said:
hmm..thanks for the input guys..now i dont know what to do..i might take the time to defret it, who knows! lol
Click to expand...

Pull the frets. Do as much research about the job as possible before you start. As stated above, be patient, do a good job and you won't regret it.

If you file the frets, it may open up a can of worms. What happens if you decide to file and you get to a point where you think you should have pulled the frets. The tangs are still in place solid and there is not much fret or crown left for a nipper to get underneath to extract them. Anyway, just something to think about.
 

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