Refretting Brad's 1957 Les Paul Special

[luxxtone]

Some of you guys may be interested in this....so I may as well put it up. It's just some photos I was taking as I was working on Brad's guitar he gave me to refret for him. This guitar is KILLER, looks and sounds awesome....now it will play like it should.

Pulling the frets out. Had to oil the board and heat up the fretwire so fretboard chunks didn't come out when pulling 54 year old frets!

Frets out safe and sound.........

Slight re-plane of the board, nice and straight to a 12" radius. Leaving some of the fretboard divots to keep it looking original and not take off too much wood. That won't affect the playability at all.

Which frets.... The first is tall narrow .93 x .47, the 2nd is an original fret .76 x .39 and the last is standard jumbo .104 x .47. We went with the jumbo.

Frets in, need to be trimmed, edges done, leveled, crowned and polished. Lots of work to go!

Frets trimmed, and leveled. Strings on for a basic play test before shaping the frets ends, crowning and sanding/polishing. Left with tension on for a day to make sure everything is cool under tension for awhile. That's where we're at today! I'll post some more photos as it gets finished this week.

 

[Scumback Speakers]

Jerry, shoot me an email, sir.

 

[luxxtone]

OK....couple days later and it's ready to finish up. Here's the frets crowned and ends shaped, but completely unsanded. Last step is sanding and buffing out the frets, clean up any fretboard scratches and set up.

All done! Looking and playing great. Action at 12th fret is 3/64" on bass side and 1/32" on treble side...very low and playing clean! Ready for delivery on Saturday.

 

[Metalred]

Nice work Jerome!

 

[luxxtone]

Nice work Jerome!

Aww yeah.....thanks Marky Mark. Now we have to build you one!

 

[King Guitar]

That guitar is a killer and now with real frets in it look out.

 

[joepete77]

wow, nice job! I love how great the old rosewood boards were. Dont know if I would like the jumbos on it though, although they arent that big. I like how u did the frett ends , the way u did them looks natural.

 

[RockStarNick]

Nice work Jerry. I'd be scared to yank out frets from wood that old.

One of these days, I'm going to attempt a complete refret myself. I've got leveling, crowning, and dressing the ends down really well. Now it's time to man-up and do a refret.

 

[glip22]

That does look great. Really nice work from what I can see. I used to be sold on Plek jobs, but I have had fretwork that is just as good done by hand.

 

[luxxtone]

Nice work Jerry. I'd be scared to yank out frets from wood that old.

One of these days, I'm going to attempt a complete refret myself. I've got leveling, crowning, and dressing the ends down really well. Now it's time to man-up and do a refret.

Thanks Nick! Yeah, pulling out old frets is always a tedious job and you really have to be careful. Heating them up with a soldering iron helps a lot, plus just going super slow and not pulling directly up on them. Try a refret on a cheaper neck first. You need to do them a number of times to get the hang of it, and your first one always sucks no matter what!! But after a few, you start to pick up little tricks and realize what works and what doesn't. I've done probably over 200 or so since 1989 when I started working for Hill Guitars, and sometimes they still will give me problems!

 

[luxxtone]

That does look great. Really nice work from what I can see. I used to be sold on Plek jobs, but I have had fretwork that is just as good done by hand.

The thing about Plek jobs is, they offer very good fretwork on a consistent basis. So it's great for higher production places where you need good fretwork on a lot of guitars, and you don't need the best fret guy around to do the job. And you don't get the inconsistencies of different guys. But, a skilled luthier can usually do a better job than a plek. You can take into account all the spots on the fretboard after tension where the neck may bend a little weird or anything number of strange things that happen and make the tiny adjustment needed by hand that the plek doesn't see. But if I had a shop where we were putting out over 50 guitars a month, it would be a worthwhile investment!

 

[glip22]

That does look great. Really nice work from what I can see. I used to be sold on Plek jobs, but I have had fretwork that is just as good done by hand.

The thing about Plek jobs is, they offer very good fretwork on a consistent basis. So it's great for higher production places where you need good fretwork on a lot of guitars, and you don't need the best fret guy around to do the job. And you don't get the inconsistencies of different guys. But, a skilled luthier can usually do a better job than a plek. You can take into account all the spots on the fretboard after tension where the neck may bend a little weird or anything number of strange things that happen and make the tiny adjustment needed by hand that the plek doesn't see. But if I had a shop where we were putting out over 50 guitars a month, it would be a worthwhile investment!

Thanks. I have a Melancon Custom Artist. Gerrard's fretwork is fantastic. I bet the Tom Anderson's are as well. And of course yours.