Hey everyone, been giving my guitar collection a spring clean as it were and during the string changes and set-ups I've now noticed that some strings are buzzing, e.g. my Westfield 335 copy has developed a fret buzz along the 15th fret on all strings, the neighbouring frets and strings play clean. This is occurring on two other guitars at specific frets along the neck (namely around the 12th or 15th). The action on each guitar is pretty low (about 3mm or so at the 12th, but without the fret-buzz could be a few 10th/s lower) Can anyone recommend a good fret dressing tool or kit to remedy this problem?
Many thanks
Replies
Stew-Mac sells every professional fret tool imaginable.
On the ones that exhibit fret buzz, is the fret too high, or too low?
You don't really need anything fancy or specialised to deal with this. Most importantly, assume nothing until you have physically checked out what the problem is, and don't do anything until you have ascertained the cause of the problem, and then only ever do one operation at a time. I'm assuming that the truss rod is correctly adjusted and you have an acceptable amount of relief in the neck generally - leave the trussrod alone if things look reasonably OK, and certainly leave it alone if you don't know what you are doing with it! Whatever you do, don't fiddle with the truss rod or alter the saddles and tamper with the frets without re-checking after each step. For example if you do adjust the truss rod, check for buzzes before you do anything else.
In this case it could be a problem with the 15th fret being too high..or the 14th fret being too low. Check with a steel rule over the offending frets to see if it's rocking over a high fret...you might need a short rule or the blade of a try-square to isolate the exact high spot.
For a high fret, if it has become unseated slightly you can sometimes judiciously tap it down with soft faced hammer (or hammer & block of wood). If that isn't an option, it needs to be reduced in height with a fine file or a whetstone..they key is to go slow and constantly check with your straightedge to make sure you don't go too far. Also, make sure you protect the fretboard itself from being marked by any tools such as files, abrasives etc that you might be using. A couple of layers of masking tape at the very least, or a special flexible steel fretboard protector ..which is just a piece of thin steel with a fret-wide slot in it. Once the fret is at the right height you'll need to reprofile it as it will now have a flat top in it. You can get special concave fret files for the job, but you can get by using a small smooth cut file or a needle file to round over and "recrown" the fret. Polish out the file marks with 600 and then 1200 grade wet & dry paper, and work to a mirror shine with 0000 grade wirewool. You might also need to polish out marks on the adjoining frets if your stone or file has kissed the top of the frets.
There are lots of specialist tools available for dressing and re-profiling frets, and they can be very handy, but you may find you've already got what you need in your toolbox. Go slow, steady and methodical, check at every stage. Best of luck with it.