Crowning File Advise Needed

[guitarzan13]

I am looking at a crowning file online.
It says that the crowning radius is .05". Will this work on medium fretwire or just narrow??

[eryque]

Is that radius a half-circle or quarter circle?

If it's a half circle, it'll only work on small fret wire, otherwise it's fine for standard fret wire. Really big fretwire has a crown a little less than .060", so it might not be big enough to work on 6105's or 6100's.

[Vizcaster]

Look at Warmoth or Musikraft or USA Custom guitars for a discussion of the various wire sizes, referred to by the Dunlop numbers by those who know, as opposed to "vintage," or "medium-jumbo" or "jumbo."

If you only have one size wire to work on, then a standard crowning file meant for that size is the most foolproof. However, an alternative (still not cheap, but cheaper than multiple files for different wire sizes) is the quarter-round file at Stew Mac, which only cuts one side of the crown at a time. On the one hand, you have twice as much filing to do, but on the other hand you get some control and you only need one file.