in a recent discussion with a 'standard' guitar maker he was suprised to hear that I didn't tend to level my frets on CBG's. this was because I had never heard/read of the process and the first four guitars I built had no issues with string buzz etc that I wasn't able to fix by adjusting bridge or other things. is this a process that people do regularly? is it necessary? thoughts please!
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thanks for all the comments guys. I ended up giving it a go and levelled the lot. got no buzz at all now.
You can get the action lower if you do it in my experience/opinion
I just use a sharpening stone, it's dead easy and takes only seconds
Do you not need to re-crown the frets afterwards?
If you file/level frets, crowning and polishing are the finishing steps to get it right. Crowning gets the center peak of the fret back to the proper position, and sanding/polishing removes grooves from the file and/or sanding paper...to reduce chance of frets nicking strings, which could lead to string breakage.
Lots of good how-to videos on Youtube for this process. Good luck
I hardly ever have to level frets. I take a lot of time to ensure the neck surface that receives the fret board is dead flat. I use a cut 80 grit belt (36" long) spray glued down to a flat table. I mark across the entire surface with pencil and sand until all the marks are gone. Then I glue on the fret board and clamp overnight. The next day I do the same thing with the fret board surface only with 120 grit. To remove scratches, I block sand to the level I desire. Anyway, if the fret board is dead flat and the neck is stout enough not to flex then there shouldn't be any need to level frets. Also, I tend to cut my fret slots just a little too deep so they always fully seat in the slot.
I've also learned the hard way. If you have trouble with several frets buzzing, it is a lot better to remove them all, redeck the fret board flat. Really, really flat and then reinstall the frets. It sounds like more work, but takes a lot less time than monkeying around trying to get even one or two to fall into line.