Can "feel" the edge of the frets...how to cure?

knadles

knadles

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Intonation is fine, but I can feel the frets. They're just a hair too long and it's bugging me. Any thoughts on the best way to address this? What tool(s) would I need?

Thanks!
-Pete
 
One of my guitars has this problem when it gets too dry after spending a few months in my classroom. Humidify the living daylights out of it for a few days and see if that solves the problem. It takes care of my guitar. If that does not work have the frets dressed.
 
Raygf said:
One of my guitars has this problem when it gets too dry after spending a few months in my classroom. Humidify the living daylights out of it for a few days and see if that solves the problem. It takes care of my guitar. If that does not work have the frets dressed.
Click to expand...

Good point dryness makes the fretboard shrink, keep the uke humidified.
 
I would not attempt to humidify as a cure for this problem as a first resort trick. File the ends of the frets flush with the fingerboard first, and then humidify if need be. Then when the uke inevitably dries out again, the frets won't protrude.

I'm not a big fan of humidifying in general unless you live in a particularly dry environment. Too often people freak and over-humidify their ukes or guitars, and then a dry spell hits, and bingo...it cracks or the fingerboard shrinks and the fret ends protrude or whatever. An instrument should be able to get used to whatever you are comfortable with. Much below 30% RH, and you may have to think about adding moisture to the air, but above that, an instrument should be fine.
 
I too have a uke with protruding frets. This particular uke was built by a UU member who, when contacted, told me that I need to humidify the uke. I have a rather large collection of high-end ukes and know about humidifying. The builder wasn't interested in re-dressing the frets so I dropped the matter. Any time I play this uke, I have to be careful that my fingers don't get hurt by the fret ends. I recently ordered a fret end-dressing file to try my hand at fixing the problem. My guess is that the builder, who is reputable and who builds a fine ukulele, didn't dress the frets well (if at all) before shipping the uke. I actually wondered if he had forgotten to do it at all.

Wish me luck that it will work out well. I rather like this ukulele!

Allen
 
Hey Allen, it is a two step process. I first use a special wood jig that holds a short section of file to dress all of the frets on either side of the fretboard at once, going just far enough that there is a tiny bevel in the fretboard itself. That keeps all of the fret ends in line. Then I mask off the fretboard and use the fret end dressing file to dress the ends. If you go immediately to dressing the fret ends, you can easily wind up with frets that vary in length down the fretboard and looks like hell.

Brad
 
I've fixed this problem on one of my ukes using a cardboard fingernail file. If you are careful and patient and mask your fretboard you can do it yourself. The edge of the cardboard file has a fairly smooth edge and didnt do any harm to my uke. It didnt take long to do. Now that I think about it ,I've done this on three ukes.
 
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