The customer at first requested that I level the existing frets, but after closer examination we determined there were several frets in the first and second position that were too dented. Leveling the frets would shave too much off, so he opted for a refret, or replacement of the frets.
This is a custom guitar that is worth more than my truck (a 2007 model with 140k miles, so not that impressive actually) but I suggested that he send it back to Steve Anderson in Portland for the work. Candidly, I was wary of chipping up the beautiful ebony fretboard. He replied that he didn’t want to ship it, which is reasonable, so I took the job.
The guitar has a bit of fall-off on the floating portion of the fretboard over the top, and since that area is above the cut-away, no fret wear was evident in that location. I took a measurement of the fret height which gave me a good idea of how high the lower frets were when originally installed over ten years ago. Additionally, I sent an email to the builder to inquire about the method of fret installation, which turned out to be a good thing – this guitar wasn’t fretted in the normal fashion: rather than standard .23 fret slots, Anderson cuts .30 slots and then seats the frets in epoxy.
Armed with this info, I removed the frets with heat, and replaced them with the same fret wire, epoxy and all. Level and polish, restring, and set action. This customer likes low action, but really, action is such a personal preference that the player needs to play it to make sure it works for them. In this case, the nut was fine as is and the bridge was easily adjustable. Good to go.
Woodsong Strings 