Upper Frets

[Bluesnote]

I posted this on another forum out of curiosity.

Do any of you file down the upper frets on your guitars, from the twelth fret up to the top fret?
I have always done this to make these high notes easier to play in the likes of Shads music and other tunes too.
I have always found that lots of guitars are almost unplayable up top, especially my Squier Bullet, I had to do a lot of work on that to get it to my satisfaction.
I'm guessing that manufacturers do not think that these frets are used that much by most guitarists and dont spend too much time on them.

[ecca]

Never had any problems , same as all the other frets.

[geoff1711]

no I've never had that problem, if the relief and neck angle are all set ok, then provided the frets are all the same height you should have no problems, it's easier to bend strings with higher frets, the lower the fret the more the friction between finger tips and board, and in most Shads tunes there's plenty of bending going on up the top end of the neck.

A better solution is to use a fine, new, oilstone so that it spans quite a few frets, then you can get them all to a similar height and radius, ideally then re profile those frets with flats across the top, and soften the ends, finally polish.

Chas Chandler in Kew has a special setting up machine which measures the neck under tension then dresses the frets to that, I've never had it done, costs around £120 from memory. but those who have say it's worth it.

Geoff

[noelford]

What a surprising question! In over forty years and loads of guitars, including the current thirteen, I've never had this problem! All play impeccably right up to twenty-first, twenty-second and, in one case, twenty-fourth frets impeccably, and have never needed anything doing to them other than a normal set-up.

[Bluesnote]

no I've never had that problem, if the relief and neck angle are all set ok, then provided the frets are all the same height you should have no problems, it's easier to bend strings with higher frets, the lower the fret the more the friction between finger tips and board, and in most Shads tunes there's plenty of bending going on up the top end of the neck.

A better solution is to use a fine, new, oilstone so that it spans quite a few frets, then you can get them all to a similar height and radius, ideally then re profile those frets with flats across the top, and soften the ends, finally polish.

Chas Chandler in Kew has a special setting up machine which measures the neck under tension then dresses the frets to that, I've never had it done, costs around £120 from memory. but those who have say it's worth it.

Geoff

I flattened the frets on one of my Strats years ago and found it made a great difference.

I've just found that the higher frets are not finished to the same standard as the rest of them. I've never bought top of the range instruments before with the exception of a Gibson 325 which was finished fine. The Fender was down the range a bit and an eighties Japanese build.