Acoustic Guitar Construction

Hi all,

hope this isn't off topic but I'm going to try to give my friend's epi les paul a makeover and there are some fairly flat frets so I think I need a concave profiling file. I'm sure I read that Ken uses the Gurian but these are nearly £70 here when you can find them. Not anticipating doing loads of work with this tool so don't want to spend a lot but on the other hand I don't want to do a rubbish job with a rubbish tool. This is the cheapest around the UK

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Guitar-Po ... 589de266b0

next up in price is hondo, any idea if they'll be any use? I know you can't tell much from looking but at least you guys have some experience at buying tools,

thanks all,

Mike

I made a lot of customers very happy doing fret work with nothing more then the tools shown here:

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/fretdressing.html

By the way these tools are born of ideas from Don Teeter -- who is/was? a master repair person and consultant for the Martin factory.

Thanks Ken, I read that but thought it was more for polishing and leveling newly installed frets. I'll find some bits of hardwood if I can then, the only bit with any thickness I have so far is a bit of tail block which seems pretty soft. I'm sure I can rustle one up for less than the cost of buying one, I like making the tools and jigs, gives me a chance to improve my woodworking.

Aircraft plywood from your local hobby store will work fine.

Note that the fret work you do on a new istrument is likely to be the most comprehensive you'll perform. Dents, scratches, high frets, FB irregularities will all be present.

I'll put this in here for all ----"never use a contoured sanding block to level frets"

Interesting, Ken, can you please expand?

Most repair techs use a large bastard file (except for SM who's trying to sell stuff) the repair manuals I've used over the years show th eflat file. --- you are not trying to correct anything side to side -- you are leveling, fret to fret end to end. Using a contoured block is asking for trouble -- first what's the chance the contour is going to match perfectly? Add to that the dimenstion change for the fret height. No matter what -- using a contoured file/block will likely take off more material on the edges then the center, and that's a problem.