Luthier's Tips & Tricks #11 - The do's and don'ts of fret leveling

Great tip! Makes perfect sense, yet you're the only guy I've watched who shares this trick. Thank you!

Getting ready to do my first fret leveling. So glad I saw your video!!!!! Makes perfect sense to me! THANK YOU!!!!

The center will not get sanded more because of overpass using a full length bar. Only the high spots will get hit.

At 2:55 he sands the frets, but the middle portion of all the fret get sanded more than the the top and bottom ends of all the frets. So, you encounter the same problem of the middle portion getting sanded more vertically as you did horizontally. Horizontally the frets in the middle of the neck getting sand more than the frets at the top and bottom of the neck; vertically all the frets are sanded more in the middle than the top and bottom of each fret. If this is even a problem, I don't see how this solves it.

Excellent info. I’m getting ready to do a fret job on one I own. I will most definitely use this technique.

That’s why you mark the fret tops with a sharpie more than once. The ink doesn’t lie. I do like to use the sid3 to side motion and would love to have the full length beam for speed sake but it’s still accurate following the ink on a straight neck.

Thanks so much. I'm about to do my first 4 guitars in the next couple of days, and you just SAVED my ass! Proving that not all hero's wear capes.

Best tip I've seen yet, makes perfect since, Thanks!

Great tip. I use a spirit level wich is garanted to be flat cause seller said me the flat part is controled by laser . And after few leveling actions on several guitars , it works fine.

Great video man!! Thanks for taking the time to make it. 😃👍

I've always pondered about the middle getting more filing than the ends. Never dawned on me to do this method. Thanks. Makes perfect sense

WOW! Believe it or not I have been thinking about doing a fret leveling recently for the first time and just last night as I was falling asleep I thought of doing it exactly this way! It just makes more sense logically to me.

Excellent advice. Thank you. You saved me from my first sending with a 10" leveler. I orderer 16" leveler after watching your video.

Thanks. I could not figure out why I always had a problem at the pickup end of the neck. I have the long beam but was doing it wrong. Thanks a million.

I sharpen ice speed skates. We stick 'em in a jig so they look like two guitar frets that are parallel to each other. We do exactly the same motion, and for exactly the same reason. Great video!

Correct me if I'm wrong. But if you have a beam that spans the entire length of the fret board and start sanding parallel to the edge of the neck, wont it only be sanding the highest frets anyway? Wont it not matter that the middle is being sanding twice as much as each end if its only knocking down the high frets to begin with and slowly getting them down to the same level as all the others?

If you use a sharpie and are watching your frets on each pass you can use a short beam and not blow through the center playing area by over sanding. The shorter beam can be used side to side following the radius without having a radius block for every guitar. Instead of just going back and forth between the nut and heel only, sand with a short beam side to side paying attention to those sharpie marks. Do not use a ton of pressure. 220 lightly to level, 400 to polish and quad 0000 steel wool to polish. It also snags any fret burrs you may have missed. Go slow and watch the sharpie marks disappear and that is key to a short block fret leveling. It can be done without a full fretboard beam.

interesting video, but I just wanted to let you know that the flat surface on the Stewmac tool is the narrow one, so you were using it wrong

Great observation. Well done. 👍✌️

Thank you! Userful, logical, sensible and should me the work faster - Appreciated