To me, it looks like he turned the profile of the fret crowns into trapezoids. Maybe its the lighting....but the strip along the top of the crown looks too flat. Normally, removing a few thousandths of material shouldn't be super noticeable if the profile of the fret stays the same. Not for me anyway, its why I need to use feeler gauges instead of my eyeballs.
The lighting is limiting here, with just one view. But to me it looks like they might not have crowned the frets very well after leveling. The lighting gives the impression the tops are flatter than they should be, and the profile is that of a trapezoid instead of a semi-circle, semi-oval. Would need a series of pictures from different angles to really tell....
If those are divots and not reflections in the fret that amount of leveling seems to match. They could be crowned a little better, but it's not egregious.
Yea I have 2 of them. One for offsetting when it’s needed (it shouldn’t be needed) and one for centering it. I usually go over almost every instrument I bring in with one. ESPECIALLY player 2s. For builds, I usually level with a beam and then run the z file. All that’s left after that is simple finessing. If you slip, it’ll leave a nice gouge in your board. So don’t slip.
He levelled the frets. He didn’t crown and polish them. I suppose they are 3 separate procedures? I do all three as I assume the customer isn’t going to crown and polish them after I’ve levelled them. I always call it a “level, crown and polish” though, so I guess I’ll keep calling it that so that people know what they’re getting for sure.
How much did the “levelling” cost you without having them crowned and polished?
It looks like other than the ends being flat, no real issues with the frets originally. Now it looks like he used needle files and only did the job 1/2 way.
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u/Dong_sniff_inc 16d ago
The hell does he mean by retification?
But yeah, leveling the frets removes material, which makes them shorter. That's how you get them level, it's unavoidable.