Lacquer on frets

hassleham

I have a US Strat from 2001 and it has got a load of lacquer on the edges of the frets, as if they put the lacquer onto the fretboard and didn't bother to clean it off the frets themselves before it dried. Is this normal procedure for maple fretboards? (i've always mainly had rosewood fretboards so not sure myself).

I've started to clean the excess lacquer from the edges of the frets and most of it cracks off quite easily but there are some spots which are tougher.

For a US strat I would expect a higher quality fret job, so wondering if it may have had a refret at some point..

Here is an example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO4kuWhx3qU

WezV

Yeah, they spray straight over.  You can scrape it off and polish as normal, but may be worth running a sharp blade down each side first to avoid chips.

Then polish as normal

ICBM

No lacquer on the sides of the frets is the usual giveaway that a maple-board Fender *has* been refretted.

Funkfingers

I always had the impression that Fender American Standard necks were sprayed whilst suspended. Hence, the build up of poly along the side of each fret and along the edge of the fingerboard - exactly where one would tumble the edges of a rosewood ‘board. 

Wherever the finish dried unnecessarily thick, it was prone to cracking and falling off in chunks.