Fret leveler?

[walterw]

I may at some point get shorter leveling beams from Stewmac for guitar and banjo, but for a 24" levelling beam I use an old masonry level, bought at a garage sale for 1$ and trued at home on the same float glass my father has been using since the 70's.

nice!

and there's no reason not to use that bar on guitars and banjos, too (i certainly use my 24" beam on guitars).

...although i did find an old big 10" mill file that was damn flat (most aren't) and modded it by chopping the ends off and gluing a wood handle on one flat side of; it gets used for adding fallaway to the ends of fretboards or for quickie spot leveling. so i suppose there is a place for shorter leveling files like that.

 

[lethargytartare]

I use a mill file (from the class I took) for leveling -- 10" I think, single cut, 2nd cut (again, I think). And I've tried several budget (read: ebay) crowing files and found them to be crap. I've used StewMac diamond crowning files (again, in my class) and they're fantastic. I currently use a standard double-edge fret file (stewmac) because I blew all my money on the cheap files from ebay lol actually, I just don't do enough fretwork to spring for the diamond ones (AND I blew all my money on a bunch of cheap ones on ebay). I got fret-end dressing files free with some other files, but if I wanted to buy one, I'd just get a set of needle files, and grind down a flat edge on a square one -- a set of those files come in really handy in a lot of places!

Another tool that is really nice, if you want to spring for it (or make your own) is the fret end beveler...I really liked the job it does. But I'd probably try to just make a block that I can mount my mill file in before I'd spend $65 on one...again, because I just don't do enough fret jobs to justify the cost. But it's definitely a nice tool to have!

Good luck!
ltt