Albert's TRB-6P | Fret Installation II
Now that the fret end bevels and fretboard edges on this Yamaha TRB-6P Six-String Bass are sufficiently smooth, we can shift our attention the the tops of the frets. Before working on the fret tops, we'll have to make sure that the fretboard is nice and flat. To this end, I've fashioned a notched straight edge out of a car number plate blank. As you can see in the pic below, there is no light showing under the straight edge, meaning that the fretboard is level.
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| Notched straight edge in use - fretboard is level |
Next, the fret tops are marked with permanent marker and the leveling process begins. With the aid of sanding beams, diamond sharpening stones and my trusty fret rocker, I'll slowly but surely ensure that all the high spots are flattened, leaving the tops of the frets level. Mind you, although this is a time-consuming process that needs to be repeated ad nauseam, there is simply no alternative.
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| Fret leveling in progress |
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| A fret rocker in use - these three frets are level |
A crucial but sometimes overlooked aspect of the leveling process is incorporating "fall-away" into the upper frets. This is something Sifu Roka Dyer Maker pointed out to me years ago during a discussion on fretwork. In the case of Albert's TRB-6P, it's the last eight frets, so there's no need to use sanding beams. A few layers of masking tape and diamond sharpening stones get the job done in a jiffy.
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| Incorporating fall-away |
Now that we're done leveling the frets and incorporating fall-away, what's next? Well, as the fret tops are currently as flat as a landing strip, we'll need to crown them. Here's where I pull out my tried-and-true
StewMac Z-File Fret Crowning File. After marking the fret tops once again with permanent marker, a few strokes of this file creates a narrow strip of "land" down the center, which is the crown. To see the Z-File in use, do check out this fine
YouTube Demo by Erick Coleman.
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| Crowning the frets |
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| The black stripe down the center is the fret crown |
The next step is fret end dressing. This process further smoothens the fret end bevel, and removes the sharp burrs at the edge of the fret bevel where it meets the edge of the fretboard. When I first started doing fretwork, fret end dressing would be done right after beveling the fret ends. However, subsequent procedures such as fret leveling would often mess up these painstakingly-dressed fret ends, and I'd have to do it over again. So, nowadays I take care of fret end dressing only after crowning. Although there are numerous specialized fret end dressing files available commercially, a three-cornered Japanese needle file with safe ground edges works fine for me.
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| Dressing the fret ends |
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| Three dressed fret ends |
And now, folks, let's tidy up our work. We'll start off by running a palm-sized sheet of 600 grit silicon carbide paper up and down the whole length of the fretboard, working our way up to 3000 grit. We'll also abrade the sides of each fret lengthwise with abrasive-impregnated erasers,
3M Scotch-Brite Pads, 0000 steel wool and
3M Flexible Polishing Papers. The purpose of this exercise is to minimize scratches left behind from earlier work with files.
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| Abrading the frets |
The frets are looking really nice already, so there's nothing else to do, right? Well, not exactly. We haven't cleaned and conditioned the ebony fretboard yet. And so, after blowing off any metal particles and dust with a can off compressed air, I gently wipe the fretboard using a clean rag dampened with a little naphtha. Now that the fretboard is clean, a healthy dose of
Dunlop Formula 65 Fretboard Ultimate Lemon Oil is applied, allowed to soak in, and wiped off with another clean rag. And with that, fret installation on Albert's Yamaha TRB-6P Six-String Bass is complete.
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| Fretboard conditioned with Dunlop Lemon Oil |
