Fret level - Update

Despite having only two strings on my travel uke the buzz along the fretboard was quite bad so I moved the fret leveling up to today rather than wait, as I was going to.

This exposed just how un-level all the frets were. One sitting so low as to be missed completely by the sanding block running over all the others!!!

I'd marked all the frets prior to leveling with a permanent black marker so i could see the progress and wish I hadn't lol

The need to find a better way to install frets is defiantly on the cards. Inspection under a strong magnifying glass reveled just how badly (unevenly) they were seated into the slots. I was so happy and full of my own crapulence prior to this lol

I suspect a press might be a better solution, if you can regulate the amount of pressure so it remains the same over all the frets.

This is not to say, the obvious need for a lot more practice wouldn't go astray either, but since I don't see me being able to finance the purchase of all that fret wire to waste then the next obvious choice is to control the consistency of the installation process.

These notes are as much for my future reference as yours but if someone stumbles into my disjointed rantings and gets the opportunity to not repeat my dopey mistakes then maybe it will be worth it. :-)

I'm still waiting on another $4.00 pickup from China along with the set of $4.00 friction tuners, and have no idea how long this will take.


I spotted this on stewmac
http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Tools_by_Job/Fretting/Jaws2_Fret_Press_and_Inserts.html

I may just try and build one myself I have an old clamp here I could use.