Smooth Frets

[Siamese]

My 2022 SG Standard 61 came with really rough frets. I tried a couple remedies, like 000 steel wool and a Miracle Cloth (same as Gorgomyte but less money). That made the playability a little better, but still scratchy.

I decided to get some sandpaper running from maybe 1200 to 4000 or so. When I was shopping for that, I came across 3M Polishing Paper. It comes in 8.5" x 11" sheets, and a set of it runs from 400 grit up to 8000. Unlike sandpaper, it's soft and flexible.

You can get it at StewMac, or, of course, Amazon.

So, I bought the paper set, and a couple metal fingerboard gaurds...the little strips of metal with a cutout for a fret so you don't accidentally sand your fingerboard.

I didn't want to screw up my Plek job, so I started with 1200 and worked my way up to 8000. Now, I think my frets are as smooth as nickel silver frets can get. Nice and glassy. I'm a bit spoiled because my previous guitar had very nicely prepped stainless frets.

I would have just taken my guitar to a luthier, but I have no idea who's any good in my area. My frets were even and the action was good, so I figured the 3M paper was worth a shot. I highly recommend it if your strings a scraping.

 

[papagayo]

Just one question : did you change the strings ?

I used a Miror cleaning solution for silver cutlery, very good result, perfect.

 

[Norton]

Those guitars go through like 6 years worth of temp and humidity shifts from factory to store. Oxidizatoon on the frets is super common.

They need polishing.

You can do that with just about any buffing compound or metal polish.

Abs the factory strings are crap for the exact same reason.

 

[Siamese]

Just one question : did you change the strings ?

I used a Miror cleaning solution for silver cutlery, very good result, perfect.

Yup...sure did.

 

[Siamese]

Depending on how bad your frets are, a single solution like a polish, or a single compound may do the trick. If they're bad enough, and that single solution doesn't give the desired result, then going through progressively finer grits will do it.

 

[MR D]

Throw another vote for the 3M ROSETTE Fret Polishing system…. With the 4 different grit papers, frikkin ROCKIN Way to get the dents out of the frets and make ‘‘em shine !Been using this system for about 8-10 years and it just works ! Less than ten bucks, serve a player for a couple years easy !

 

[SGBreadfan]

I use a four way nail file and sometimes some after polish, works great.