At What Point Do You Level and Round Your Frets

[tippie53]

for the best fret job , you have to have the fret board on the neck. Any thing else is a guess and you still have to level and redress on the neck so they are paired up.

[enalnitram]

Matin, how do you keep the board flat when leveling before attaching to the neck? Just the pressure of the leveling block on the FB? Fairy dust? Magic gnomes? I am curious because I have a nice granite counter top to screw up...I mean use as a flat surface if needed for the next two guitars in the que.

I just use pressure. I have a couple of granite surfaces also. But keep in mind I am only doing it before I glue the fingerboard on, to get it most of the way there. I find it best to do it this way because I won't have to worry about the fingerboard extension or the guitar top or the nut slot area. I have a big, long flat file that I use and I don't want to accidently mark anything else up. I do touch it up again (leveling and crowning) after it is attached to the neck.

[Tony_in_NYC]

Thanks for the info Martin. I kind of figured it was just pressure. Not many people have Magic Gnomes.
You are a bit of a perfectionist though, and I am a not. I pretty much level once the neck is attached to the body. I use some poster board to protect the top and go slowly.
I just picked up a bunch of tools and supplies from a kid getting out of the guitar building hobby and so I now own a StewMac 3 in 1 fret file. It had better work better than the "tool" I made from some scrap or I wasted $5.00.

[Dan Bombliss]

The way that I like to do frets on a build now is fret my finger board before gluing it down to the neck. You have to double stick tape the fingerboard down on a very flat surface though, the compression of the frets, that cause the backbow in the fingerboard, cause the frets to not want to sit or stay seated. So you need to doublestick tape the board down to a flat surface until right before your ready to glue it on.

I also like the neck being glued to the body first. Gives you a chance to sand out the neck/body fit there on the top surface to be sure you've got a smooth transition. You got to be careful not to make dips where the fingerboard lays on the body though, so don't just sand in one straight line the whole time.

Once the fingerboard is glued on, then I level it and all that jazz.

-Dan

[tippie53]

Curing back bow , I find that I clamp the board to my bench over night with a piece of top wood scrap on each end. Usually makes things nice and straight till morning . It gets the barbs to bite well .