I've got a 2004 MIA 50th Anniversary Strat with a maple neck I just bought. The frets have a sharp edge on the neck. Is this just a wintertime issue? Do I need to get a humitifier for the case, or are there more serious issues?

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Life is like a sh*t sandwich. The more bread you have, the less sh*t you have to eat.

"Ye Ole Fret Sprout".

All necks are different. It could very well be just a wintertime issue. Yes, you could try a case humidifier and see if it makes the sprout disappear. If after a week or so the humidifier hasn't significantly helped, then it is time to have a COMPETENT tech take care of it.

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Hi masterhacker: well yes, it is likely a seasonal issue. But then if you address it in the winter then hopefully come next winter when the frets feel like "sprouting" again you will have already knocked off the excess and stand a chance of not suffering much of an issue in future. Not guaranteed, but...

Get a tech to deal with it (very quick and easy). Or as it happens, we'll be doing fret dressing in a week or two on my Burnt Strat thread, if you want to see how to deal with this yourself.

...Oops, what a giveaway...

Cheers - C

We are still waiting patiently on that thread Ceri. I'm guessing that we are waiting on several layers of lacquer to dry between sanding!!


BTW OP forum member nikininja is one of our fret experts!!

Well partly, yes. Also, we're waiting while I try and catch up with a mountain of other stuff in my life. Like a tiny Valentine's Day gift I'm making for the Missus and which is giving me lots of misery. And also the small matter of my day job - a guy's gotta earn a bit of a living at some point...

Cheers - C

Understood my friend!!

Never heard of winter/summer issues. Unless you're keeping the guitar in the garage, exposing it to cold tempetures (which by the way, metal contracts, not expands in the cold) Wood needs mositure or lack there of to expand or contrast. Unless the finish is a thin nitro, moisture shouldn't even be an issue.

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Buy one of these:
http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/ ... sku=420984

Follow the instructions or just leave the guitar closed up in a hardcase for a few days and measure the humidity. If its below 40% then it needs more moisture.

You can to this by getting a small plastic container an place a sponge inside.
Put a couple of teaspoons of water in the sponge and place it inside the case with the guitar in a safe spot where noones going to pick up the case.

Just keep adding every couple of days until your guitar is back to humidity.

You don't want the sponge to have direct contact with the guitar or humidify it too fast! Important to keep monitoring it. Remember when you open the case moisture in the air of the case is lost so don't do it constantly.

As there will be more moisture in the air of the case when the sponge is wet by removing it will give more accurate reading with the Hygro Thermometer.

If this is beyond your skill level get a professional to do it.

Hi DetroitBlues: sounds good in theory, but in fact fret sprout in winter is a well recognised phenomenon. Metal contracts in cold - but wood moves more.

Likely, the inside of the house this guitar lives in isn't changing in temperature a lot between summer and winter, so metal isn't contracting and expanding much. However, the humidity is changing and that is what does the trick.

Finish or no finish it is to do with the moisture in the timber - and this is also what leads to the cracking and "crazing" of some less plyable body finishes. Famously some batches of slightly badly mixed nitro in the past have been more brittle and so cracked in this way.

Bizarrely of course that is one of the very effects relic'ers now sometimes seek to immitate. It's an odd world.

Though I've never yet heard of relic'ers trying to replicate fret sprout...

Cheers - C

I too have never experienced frets rising in wintertime but maybe that has to do with the fact our summers are fairly dry here compared to many places so wild changes in humidity don't often happen.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Not rising but protruding out of either side of their respective fingerboard slots. This is a very common occurrence in newer instruments whose woods has not been allowed to sufficiently age and dry out naturally before they made fingerboards out of them.

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I've been playing for many years and never experienced that. I live in Michigan and we have 100 degree jumid summers and 15 below dry winters....

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I have this with my 72 thinline Tele and have never been able to get rid of it. Every other guitar i bought that was from Arizona or that region came with it but after a month it disappeared never to return. Not the case with the 72 and the way the necks are on I think it will be a hard problem for even a great luthier not to scratch the finish.

That's why I love this forum. Every time I think I'm the first to have an issue, someone else brings it up...

I'm noticing this too with my new MIM Tele. I thought well, maybe it's the MIM quality thing but judging by what I see here it's more of a humidity issue. Or the lack thereof.

I was thinking of sanding/filing down the ends but now I'm not sure since when in the spring/summer when more humid weather rolls in, will the neck swell up more than the ends of the sanded frets leaving a gap on each side?

-T

If that was true, how come it doesn't ruin binding on bound necks? It would seem the binding would be pushed out or cracked during winter/summer?

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