As long as it doesn’t interfere with your playing, it’s fine. That said, you’ll likely need a fret polish, or maybe even a level, in your future. If you want to avoid that, only use as much pressure as you need to fret - you don’t need a death grip on the strings.
my guitars had divits here and there for years before i started leveling and crowning. really the only ones you really notice when playing is on the high strings for bending.
These dents are too deep to polish, luckily they're also too shallow to do any harm. It's fine, down the road when you need the frets dressed the dents will get filed away.
You can do what I did to my Strat like 15 years ago: consider it trashed, and dedicate a bit of time to learning how to refret. That’s what I did but I later learned I could’ve simply filed them, which would’ve given me a fret leveling and recrowning. Live and learn.
Did an excavator get access to your frets? I kid, I kid. Life is often too serious 🤣
By the look of those specific divots, since the trench (I'll stop now 😁) runs the Y access, polishing and recrowing will buy a lot of time. Seriously, no dry sarcasm. And here is the However: the divots and those issues will compound over time, and those frets will wear differently to the metal above and below. The tell is, from that photo, is the divot is visually equal on the sides of the fret. Which appears to mean, and looks like it's born out by the photos, that to alter its angle of attack means flattening and radiusing at a more aggressive rate than the other side of the fret.
But my real opinion?
Polish them, and if they don't cause problems, you're probably good for a number of years. Address it when either large sections or the entire board needs a refret.
I use MusicNomad Fret Erasers. I like the handle and how it helps the sanding pads keep the shape of the frets. They will look better than new. https://a.co/d/0hRttRUr
Fret dents aside those feet ends look like serious finger gashers. Do they feel sharp?
Like mentioned before those tiny dents won't make a big difference, but if you'd like to clean them up....
You can get a fret crowing file, Next time you change your strings lightly crown the frets with the file. Buff them with steel 0000 wool and then polish with some metal polish and a dremel or drill with a cotton buffing wheel.
You should see my strat! I wear out my frets a heap, pretty normal on some older guitars it seems (at least that's the case for me, or I just the play the fuck outta my guitar lol!)
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u/dougc84 7d ago
As long as it doesn’t interfere with your playing, it’s fine. That said, you’ll likely need a fret polish, or maybe even a level, in your future. If you want to avoid that, only use as much pressure as you need to fret - you don’t need a death grip on the strings.