Fret Work

[tune_link]

I have a 97 CIJ Jazzmaster that needs some fret work but I don't know how much yet. I'm gonna take it to my tech and see if it needs to just be crowned and polished or if a refret is necessary at this point. It got me thinking about the frequency of work like this though. If you all are playing a guitar that gets a lot of use how often do you expect to have to have to do something like your frets crowned and polished? I've literally never had this kind of work done on any guitar ever. I owned a Gibson SG for about 18 years, bought it new in 2000 and when I sold it the frets still looked almost new even after years of use. My 97 JM I bought used in 2005 and it played great up until about 6 years ago when certain spots on the fretboard started choking out during string bends. I can see little indentations in the frets where the choke points are, which is kind of what I would expect. It's been benched ever since then because I was afraid of making it worse by continuing to play it.

[Beebe]

Depends on lots of things like: type of strings, how often it's played, how it's played, fret type... I'm working on a friend's '97 California Series Tele now with similar issues. He probably hasn't played it in about 6 yrs as well... So yeah, about that long.

[adamrobertt]

Yeah, there's no real answer to this because there are too may factors. But it's definitely on the scale of "years" for most people. Although not wanting to play it for fear of "making it worse" is odd to me, it's like not driving your car because you don't want to wear down the tires. I consider minor fret work like this to be a typical maintenance item, like rotating your tires or changing your oil. It just has to be done eventually, and it shouldn't be a big deal for most techs either.

Also it's not impossible for a guitar from '97 to need a refret, but I bet it just needs the frets leveled unless it's been done several times already.

[tune_link]

Yeah, there's no real answer to this because there are too may factors. But it's definitely on the scale of "years" for most people. Although not wanting to play it for fear of "making it worse" is odd to me, it's like not driving your car because you don't want to wear down the tires. I consider minor fret work like this to be a typical maintenance item, like rotating your tires or changing your oil. It just has to be done eventually, and it shouldn't be a big deal for most techs either.

Also it's not impossible for a guitar from '97 to need a refret, but I bet it just needs the frets leveled unless it's been done several times already.

Thanks! I think this is what I was looking for in an answer. I can't imagine it would need a refret then since I don't think the previous owner ever had it done and I definitely haven't had any neck work done to this thing. I bet it does just need to be leveled then.

[adamrobertt]

Yeah, there's no real answer to this because there are too may factors. But it's definitely on the scale of "years" for most people. Although not wanting to play it for fear of "making it worse" is odd to me, it's like not driving your car because you don't want to wear down the tires. I consider minor fret work like this to be a typical maintenance item, like rotating your tires or changing your oil. It just has to be done eventually, and it shouldn't be a big deal for most techs either.

Also it's not impossible for a guitar from '97 to need a refret, but I bet it just needs the frets leveled unless it's been done several times already.

Thanks! I think this is what I was looking for in an answer. I can't imagine it would need a refret then since I don't think the previous owner ever had it done and I definitely haven't had any neck work done to this thing. I bet it does just need to be leveled then.

Yeah, most frets can be leveled and recrowned like 2 or 3 times before they need to be replaced.