george kraushaar
Junior Member
I spent all of snowy today refretting my 77 D-55. Out went the old jumbo wire that had been leveled at least three times and in went new Martin style wire from Stew Mac. This wire was .50 in height instead of the standard .41 simply because I wanted to try it. This necessitated a new nut to accommodate the higher wire.
Fretting a guitar is a tedious and exacting job. After removing all the wire I leveled the fretboard and chased all the slots with a partial fret saw from Stew Mac. Stew Mac also sells a special tool which notches the fret ends so that they fit over the binding.
The job was fairly straightward except that the binding wanted to come loose and I had to reglue several sections of it. The finished job required some leveling but ther frets are still a little higher than standard Martin wire. Filing and smoothing the ends of the frets takes a long time to ensure that there are no snaggy edges.
The guitar now sounds totally different than before. All the notes are crystal clear all the way up. The treble notes are clear where they had been fuzzy because the old frets were so worn down. Whereas the guitar had been bass heavy, now it is well balanced. The guitar also seems louder. I'm sure that the new, thinner, higher fret wire had a lot to do with this transformation, as well as the new bone nut (the old nut was bone as well),
Previously I was unable to adjust the neck to proper straightness because it would get buzzy in the lower frets. Now the neck is straight and the action is better in the higher positions. I had considered a neckset, but now I think that will be unneccesary.
I'm going to go play this guitar to see if I like what I've got. It isn't the same guitar anymore.
Fretting a guitar is a tedious and exacting job. After removing all the wire I leveled the fretboard and chased all the slots with a partial fret saw from Stew Mac. Stew Mac also sells a special tool which notches the fret ends so that they fit over the binding.
The job was fairly straightward except that the binding wanted to come loose and I had to reglue several sections of it. The finished job required some leveling but ther frets are still a little higher than standard Martin wire. Filing and smoothing the ends of the frets takes a long time to ensure that there are no snaggy edges.
The guitar now sounds totally different than before. All the notes are crystal clear all the way up. The treble notes are clear where they had been fuzzy because the old frets were so worn down. Whereas the guitar had been bass heavy, now it is well balanced. The guitar also seems louder. I'm sure that the new, thinner, higher fret wire had a lot to do with this transformation, as well as the new bone nut (the old nut was bone as well),
Previously I was unable to adjust the neck to proper straightness because it would get buzzy in the lower frets. Now the neck is straight and the action is better in the higher positions. I had considered a neckset, but now I think that will be unneccesary.
I'm going to go play this guitar to see if I like what I've got. It isn't the same guitar anymore.
