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| Say hello to my little friend! |
The Fret Rocker is a neat little invention. You use it to check fret height along your guitar neck. Basically, you place the rocker over three frets. If the middle fret is higher than the other two - the fret rocker will rock back and forth. If it doesn't rock - those three frets are equal in height to each other. You then go up and down the whole neck - checking all of the frets this way. The rocker has four different sides of different lengths (because the frets get closer together as you move up the neck).
Any frets that are "proud" (higher than their neighbor) need to be filed down. A good way to remember which frets need to be filed (and to make sure you are filing them evenly) is to cover them with magic marker.
Normally - you would use bright blue or red - but orange was the color I had at hand.
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| Egads! Another file? |
Enter fret file #3 - the Fret Crowning file. What do you do if you have a fret that is too tall? You file it down of course. How do you do that without scratching the shiznit out of your fret board? You use a fret crowning file. Notice that it has two smooth areas where it contacts the wood and a metal file that is arched like the top of a fret? If all goes well - you will give the proud fret a haircut and make it similar in height to its neighbors.
Things I didn't take pictures of: Polishing the frets with Steel Wool. This is an important step as it does two things: 1) Removes any filing marks from the previous steps and 2) makes the frets look super shiny.
...and also helps the instrument play better.
It's important that you use 000 (extra fine) or 0000 (super fine) grade steel wool. If you use a kitchen grade steel wool pad - you will make a righteous mess of your fretboard and frets. One note: even with the super fine grades of steel wool - you should either cover the wood parts of the fretboard with painter's tape or buy special metal fretboard/fingerboard guards for this task. If I am working on 1 or 2 frets - I'll usually use a fretboard/fingerboard guard. If I need to polish the entire fretboard - I usually use tape. This will allow you to run the steel wool up and down the fret board and smooth out the fret ends.
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| ...pretty sure that's not how sandpaper works... |
Now that the fretboard is in good shape - it's time to take a look at the neck. Out of the box - the neck was pretty smooth - maybe even ready for a finish. But since there was no indication either way - I decided to give the neck a quick pass with some 220, 320, and finally 400 grit sandpaper. The neck is now definitly ready for a finish.
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| "Not in my store you don't!" |
The kit came with a brand logo on the headstock, "5 Star." I generally use coins on my headstocks - specifically Irish coins that have a harp on them (see picture below). So, I'll be removing the existing logo.
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| Why does it look like my ankle is broken in this photo? |
This was done with 80 grit sandpaper - which is quite aggressive.
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| I switched to 120 grit once I got to this point. |
Then I worked my way up through the grits to 400 grit. And now the headstock is ready for a finish.
Just for giggles - I dry fitted the coin where it will eventually live
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| That's the money, sonny. |
Pay no attention to that sheen on the headstock. That's for a future post.
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