Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm practicing leveling and crowning frets on a "practice f/board before trying it on my actual classical guitar. I am using a "3 in one" crowning file, and am getting a rough scratchy surface on the fret. The file seems to be too rough. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Ray

Dump it and get a diamond file.

I've tried a number of incarnations of the toothed fret file design and never been remotely satisfied with them. Even if you chalk or wax them, they seem to keep at least enough debris caught in them to drag some deep gouges in to the frets. For some reason, perhaps the size of shavings, the diamond files seem less susceptible to this problem. I've even cut slots in that style of file every few millimeters along their length in an attempt to help clear shavings, but it never did much good.

I tried those so many times, but always ended up going back to the traditional three-corner file until diamond files came available. You'll still have to final sand and polish the frets no matter what you use to crown them, but those leave scratches so deep that it would increase my polishing time at least 3x as much time may have been saved in crowning. Worthless tools in my opinion.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I like this diamond file from Stew-Mac.

_________________
Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

WE should start a thread of Tools I wish I hadn't bought. I have a small pile of those..... and one like yours in this picture...

_________________
http://www.dickeyguitars.com