What are "hand rolled frets," how are they different from regular frets?

A hand rolled fretboard is a rounding off of either edge of the fretboard. There was a thread around april with a few pictures.

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No no and no

Run your fret hand up and down the neck of a good MIA strat, then do that with a $100 Squier. All those sharp fret edges cutting up your hands? Those are all rolled off and smoothed like a baby's bottom on better guitars.

There is a seller on ebay called( guitar-tools-frets-n-supplies-guru) that sells all these great luthier tools that I know a lot of you guys would love. He has this new file for strats and teles that is called the ultimate fret end file. It is rounded of so if you slip you dont rip up your guitar. It looks so easy to use I think I will get one. So thats saying a lot.lol

Guys i'm pretty sure you'll find hand rolled edges have nothing to do with the frets themselves but are a detail on the fretboard. Frets should have rounded edges on any guitar. Unfortunately its not always the case that you get a good finished fretjob. Compare the rounded edges of the fretboard on a American Deluxe to a standard strat and you'll see what i mean. If you look near the nut of a deluxe you'll see a tiny triangle of timber where the shaping tool cant quite get into that corner. It highlights exactly what has been taken off the neck and also shows that the edges are machine rounded.

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No no and no

+1 It's the wood between the frets!

The radius of the rolled edge is very (very) small.
I believe there is no filing involved: the edge is crushed by rolling a heavy metal something (like a socket) against it. I've seen a good DIY page on it somewhere ...

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

You are correct Rolled fretboard means that. The edge has been rolled and taken off the board itself so theres no sharpness on the board between frets ( tapered or rounded ). A good fret job removes the sprouts (frets) from sticking out on any type of fretboard rolled on not.

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