People that repair guitars know that fretwork can be hard on the body. Consider what goes into a basic fret level and dress (we’ll simplify the process for brevity’s sake).
First we use a sanding block or beam to take all of the frets to the proper height. Since the tops of the frets are now flat, we’ll use a special file called a crowning file to round the top of the frets. Finally, we’ll polish the frets.
The crowning and polishing are seriously punishing on the body. Lots of repetitive motion with a good amount of elbow grease.
We use Stewmac’s Fret Erasers to do the polishing work. Fret erasers are wonderful – the help us remove any scratches on the frets, and after multiple passes, get a mirror shine on every fret. The drawback to fret erasers is that they aren’t particularly easy to hold. It’s a recipe for carpal tunnel syndrome or some other repetitive stress injury.
So – do you have a spare Gurian file on hand? Here’s what we do to make fret polishing a bit more ergonomic:
The file give you something a bit more substantial to hold onto, which definitely reduces wear and tear on the body, at least from our experience!
