I was talking to a sales rep at the local guitar shop. He told me the first thing he does to all his guitars is to file and level the frets. Regardless of what "price level" guitar he buys.

Mind you he wasn't trying to sell me a service. We were just shooting the breeze.

He said frets are just hammered in at the factory and even custom shop fenders and high priced LPs could stand to have the frets leveled.


Is he nuts or should I be doing this to my guitars?

Regardless of the price level? So he even levels the frets of a Squire Bullet Strat which streets for about $130? My local luthier charges $100 and up for a fret level and crown. Your guy must work awfully cheap or have a lot of spare time on his hands.

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Bill

He's nuts or he's exaggerating or he's spoiling good guitars.

Some guitars come out of factories with much less than perfect fretwork, but plenty don't. You should address fretting issues - if there are issues that need addressing. None of the guitars I bought new needed work done on the frets: that's why I bought them.

And you most definitely should not be doing it to your guitars unless you honestly know what you are doing.

Cheers - C

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All I know is that I had tinkered around for better part of a year changing Pup's, bridge blocks, pots, and multiple set ups (measuring, raising, lowering, re-measuring, raising, lowering and on and on) and a little filing but could never get the guitar to that action I was looking for. So I decided to take my Christmas cash and have my guitar set up and fret dressed this week by an experienced tech...what an amazing difference.

The tech told me the frets were mostly ok as I had filed the edges down myself (but didn't have the tools (or guts) to finish the bigger task of the frets themselves). The bigger problem was just the neck wood itself which to his trained eye was a bit wavy. According to him this is "just what you get with a mexi". Let's face it...he's probably right. While a good guitar it's just a notch below a MIA with details.

He threw everything he had at it and a couple days later i picked up my "new" 2006 MIM Strat.

He finished up the fret work which was what I thought really needed the most work initially. What i thought and what was needed were two different things. The amazing thing was the rest of the work that was done aside from frets. The tech properly set up the guitar as good as a MIM will ever get. Nut work (filing and set proper height), slight shim to the neck, float properly etc. The bonus however was reworking the bridge to eliminate those dreaded bridge screws on imports which seem to be about a 1/2 inch long and make it next to impossible to palm mute.

In summary...it's not only worth having the fret work done but also the rest of the details that will make your investment (time and cash) worth it and more enjoyable.

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Bob

I could see doing that to lower end guitars cause they do have rough edges on the frets. But to take an expensive guitar and start doing that ? I wouldn`t want to void a warranty, I would just bring it back and let the dealer handle it.

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No one is arguing that a proper setup or fret dressing are not good things to do if necessary. The thing that leave me scratching my head is the statement that the first thing this rep "does to all his guitars is to file and level the frets. Regardless of what "price level" guitar he buys." Fret dressing is time and labor intensive and must be done properly to avoid ruining the guitar. That care costs money which must be either added to the selling price of the guitar or absorbed by the seller.

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Bill

I should point out he does this himself, so no extra cost to him. I have no intention of having it done to my guitars as they play just fine. The only thing that needs work on my axes is the guy playing them.

His comments just struck me as odd. I never heard of someone doing this to a new guitar. Especially a "top quality" one.

Agreed.

As has already been stated, I too, do not believe that each and every new guitar that comes into his place requires fretwork. I'm calling, "BS", some sort of personal obsession or (and this is EXTREMELY unlikely), he has made a deal with the manufacturers to sell him discounted new guitars with known fret issues.

This also gets into the realm of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I'd be vary weary of any putative 'tech' who habitually engages in such practices.

As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV.

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You dig?

Like I said in my first post; He either works really cheap or has a lot of free time on his hands. Either case would cause me to think twice before buying a guitar that he has worked on.

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Bill

It would make more sense if the rep was talking about what he does to his own personal guitars, not every guitar in the store that he sells. Some players are obsessive like that. No one could make a profit on selling guitars if they leveled and dressed frets on every one. The OP did state "...guitar he buys...", not "guitar he sells".

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

Correct Shimmilou, this is what he does to his personal guitars.

Sounds like Bluesky is right, bunch of BS or he's obsessive.

I can believe it for his personal guitars, some players are like that, automatically do this or that before playing any guitar. Players do all kinds of weird things, and doing the frets on a new guitar isn't that unusual. How many guitars does the guy have?

If he were talking about doing the frets on all the guitars that he sells, then yes, BS.

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

As he is a guitar rep, I intereted it as guitars he buys for future sale.

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Bill

I actually don't doubt he does this. I have a friend that does some OCD things when he buys guitars or amps. What i question is the value of him doing this.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

In his mind it's probably a huge improvement. Maybe he a fret filing system and tells himself this to justify his purchase. He's not a guitar rep per say. He's a guy that works at a national guitar chain.

Kinda like batteries. I only use Duracell 9V in my pedals. They have a thicker, warmer tone than Ever ready's. Just kidding.