Fret crowning

[Ua The Destroyer]

Built my first neck from scratch.

All the way up to the fretwork now.

How narrow do you make the level top of a fret while crowning?
I leveled everything with my beam and now i am crowning the frets.
Are we talking a 1mm or 0.5mm flat left on top?
Im using a stewmac z file centered.
Thanks for any help

 

[Peegoo]

@Ua The Destroyer

It ideally depends on the fret wire. Narrow wire gets a narrower top. Jumbo/wide gets a wider top. But the difference is not that great.

Generally, you mark the fret tops with a marker and then crown until you are left with a thin whisp of a marker line down the center. Then it's time to polish. This makes a nice round top on the fret.

 

[Freeman Keller]

I frankly have never measured. When I level I try to take off as little material as possible. If I have to take a lot then something was wrong with the fretting. I'll take a couple of swipes with a crowning file to round the edges. Some folks like school bus shaped frets, I don't.

 

[Ua The Destroyer]

I figure people don’t measure, but im just trying to get an idea for what im looking for width wise so i can eyeball it correctly. Thanks

 

[Ua The Destroyer]

@Ua The Destroyer

It ideally depends on the fret wire. Narrow wire gets a narrower top. Jumbo/wide gets a wider top. But the difference is not that great.

Generally, you mark the fret tops with a marker and then crown until you are left with a thin whisp of a marker line down the center. Then it's time to polish. This makes a nice round top on the fret.

Thanks. I did all these steps and did lots of reasearch over the yeads with videos/read articles, but whats a thin wisp you know? Thats all im trying to figure out. I appreciate the info

 

[giogolf]

I figure people don’t measure, but im just trying to get an idea for what im looking for width wise so i can eyeball it correctly. Thanks

You can remarker the frets after leveling before you crown..

Ive seen some luthiers crown until they see a faint or thin marker line.. But like Freeman and PeeGoo stated above who are seasoned pros at this; crowning is more feel.. narrow wire will be pointier and wide wire will be flatter more domed

 

[Ua The Destroyer]

Thanks. Just got home and i compared my work to guitars i own that i know where leveled and crowned by a professional(especially the ones i personally took to a luthier). I think did just fine. My fret ends aren’t dressed as perfectly, but my crowning and leveling looks to be the same with a similar fret top. Now i just need my hardware to show up so we can do an initial setup before finishing.

 

[Ua The Destroyer]

You can remarker the frets after leveling before you crown..

Ive seen some luthiers crown until they see a faint or thin marker line.. But like Freeman and PeeGoo stated above who are seasoned pros at this; crowning is more feel.. narrow wire will be pointier and wide wire will be flatter more domed

Yeah did that and took it down until there was a narrow line. Then i sanded up throuhh grits starting with 400 and poliushed them with my dremel.
Pic of finished neck ready for paint

 

[giogolf]

Yeah did that and took it down until there was a narrow line. Then i sanded up throuhh grits starting with 400 and poliushed them with my dremel.
Pic of finished neck ready for paint

Great job! One day Ill do a scratch build

 

[schmee]

I doubt I have anything as narrow as 1 mm other than narrow fret instruments that came that way.

 

[bender66]

A whisp = a sliver.

 

[Ronkirn]

everything ya need to know..

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/fret-leveling-yer-tele-101.201556/

Ron

 

[Boreas]

A whisp = a sliver.

wisp = sliver = gnat's eyelash

 

[Freeman Keller]

As I said, I don't measure but here is a new fretboard being dressed. The frets have been marked in red and a couple of passes of the big beam with some 400 grit sticky back paper on it. Not the sharpest picture by you can see where the red has been removed

Now I've wrapped some 600 grit wet and dry into the notch on a crowning file and made a couple of light passes to round the top of the frets off.

Fretboard gets masked off while the guitar is finished, during the final setup I'll go over the frets with steel wool and micro mesh.

 

[Ua The Destroyer]

everything ya need to know..

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/fret-leveling-yer-tele-101.201556/

Ron

Thanks for the info. Ive actually read through your thread a few times. I appreciate you posting it up

 

[Skydog1010]

I figure people don’t measure, but im just trying to get an idea for what im looking for width wise so i can eyeball it correctly. Thanks

Do you have a neck that you like with the same wire?

There's your template.

 

[Ua The Destroyer]

As I said, I don't measure but here is a new fretboard being dressed. The frets have been marked in red and a couple of passes of the big beam with some 400 grit sticky back paper on it. Not the sharpest picture by you can see where the red has been removed

View attachment 1070887

Now I've wrapped some 600 grit wet and dry into the notch on a crowning file and made a couple of light passes to round the top of the frets off.

View attachment 1070888

Fretboard gets masked off while the guitar is finished, during the final setup I'll go over the frets with steel wool and micro mesh.

Thanks for the info. Yeah i used the sandpaper in the crowning file to help polish them up also

 

[Skydog1010]

I'll measure later.
Thin tall stainless.

 

[Ua The Destroyer]

Do you have a neck that you like with the same wire?

There's your template.

I do and thats what i compared it too last night. Ive been building everything at my work, but all my guitars are at home so I didnt have a visual reference. Id practice on some of my cheaper guitars but they all have minimal wear since i had everything tuned up over the pandemic.

Overall it looks like my whisp/slivers are plenty narrow enough.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Ua, I see lots of old Gibsons with really wide flat fret crowns, they really do have a school bus shape to them. They seem to play just fine, I've never tried to get that shape when I'm dressing frets. I think Earlewine talks about that in his book on guitar repair - my copy is in my shop and its too cold to go get it. I'll check and see what he says.