Fixing a high fret - a home fix?

relic245

I've just got a new (2nd hand) prs tremonti.

1st play and it seemed really well set up.

2nd play and I've spotted that the high E is choking off when I bend at the 12th and 17th frets but no others.

I'm no expert but would assume that means that the 13th and 18th frets are high.

If course I can raise the action but it's pretty perfect as it is.

I have no guitar related tools or experience is this something that I could fix myself of do I really need to take it to a tech?

SteveRobinson

relic245 said:

I have no guitar related tools or experience 

Best take it to someone who has both

Funkfingers

A Fret Rocker tool would confirm which frets are high (or low). 

Unless you are confident that you know how to remedy the problem, it will be wiser to hand the task over to a professional.

Musical_Mystery_Tour

You could do it yourself if you grabbed one of those comparatively inexpensive kits off Ebay or similar, but be aware that extremely cheap tools are rarely a good thing. But, having some decent luthier tools would be good if you ever had or wanted to fix your own guitars down the line. If you haven't the inclination to do that sort of thing going forward, it would probably cost you under fifty quid for a techie to sort it for you if it really is only a couple of high frets.

If you want to do it yourself, it's not rocket science, but you will need to buy a few bits and bobs to do it right. If you really want to do it right, practice on a cheap guitar first. But, here's what you do...

Get the strings off and adjust the truss rod (slowly!) so the neck is flat (check that with a notched fret level ruler (about ten quid or so off fleabay, usually comes with a fret rocker and possibly some fret guards). Note how many turns it took to get the neck flat (it won't be very much, possibly as little as a quarter of a turn). When it is flat, use a fret rocker (usually comes with the fret ruler) to determine which frets, if any, are high and mark the crown of the ones you find with a black permanent marker (or if you memory is good, you can skip that). Note that you should use that rocker all the way across the frets and try a few different side lengths on the fret rocker to be very sure of what you are finding. It may be the case that only part of the fret is high, so mark them accordingly if you find that to be the case.

Examine those marked frets to see if they are properly seated, if not, place the guitar on a neck rest (usually about a tenner) and some cloths, then seat them with a copper-faced fret hammer (maybe 15 quid off fleabay, but it goes without saying really that you don't skimp on the cost of anything you are going to be whacking your guitar with). Note that we are talking light but firm taps here, you are not breaking up a concrete paving slab. If you are not a good shot with a hammer, use the fret finish guards which probably came with your ruler and rocker set to protect the fretboard. There is a reasonable chance all the frets will be already well-seated, so you might not have to do this bit at all.

If all are seated properly, use a fret leveller beam to take them down to the correct height (work slowly and check regularly with the rocker). When you've got them level, use a fret crowning file (probably 15 quid or so for a decent one and often comes with some fret guards), but either tape off the fretboard or use the fret finishing guards to protect the fretboard/binding.

Finish the frets off with some fret rubbers or some extremely light grade abrasive paper. Some people will use steel wool for that, but if you do, mask off your pickups or tie a plastic bag around the entire body to stop tiny bits of metal going on your pickups, as they will stick to it, which looks annoying but more importantly, if they go inside the pickup, they can short it out. Polishing stuff such as Brasso or even toothpaste can work as a very mild abrasive if you want to go mental on polishing the frets, but of course, cover up anything you don't want that stuff to go on with either masking tape or painters tape, unless you want a guitar full of minty goodness.

When it is mission accomplished, give it a good clean (blutack is good for lifting tiny shavings and such off things and do that before you start polishing things in order to avoid scratches which tiny bits of fret metal absolutely will cause), maybe chuck a bit of lemon oil on there whilst you have the strings off if it looks like the thing needs it, bang some strings back on and put the turns back on the truss rod to get it back where it was, it should in theory at least, be the reverse of what you did to get the neck flat.

Before you do any of this stuff, watch a few videos of people doing this kind of thing to get a good idea of how to do it all, but be aware that just because someone has made a video of themselves doing this kind of thing, it doesn't mean they aren't a moron (youtube has no requirement for an IQ test before anyone starts a luthier channel), so definitely watch more than a few videos.

BillDL

relic245 said:

I've just got a new (2nd hand) prs tremonti. ..... the high E is choking off when I bend at the 12th and 17th frets but no others.  I'm no expert but would assume that means that the 13th and 18th frets are high.

How far across the 12th and 17th frets does the High E string bend before it chokes out?

I'll take a guess here that it reaches the point between where the B and G strings normally pass over the fret.  Assuming that the 13th and 17th frets appear to be fully seated from the middle across to the treble side AND that your guitar does not have stainless steel frets, try this first and see whether it improves the choking or gets rid of it.

On the B String - 2nd finger on the 13th fret, and 3rd finger on the 14th, so the affected 13th fret is between your fretting fingers.  Do some wide vibrato bends (i.e. down and up) while fretting a little more firmly than normal and keep doing this for about 20 seconds.  Apply the greater pressure with your 2nd finger fairly close up to the 13th fret, don't dig in too much with the string, and stop immediately if you feel the string scraping the fret.  You are just trying to apply some accelerated natural wear to the 13th fret, and it probably won't need to be worn much at all to reduce or eliminate the choking out.  Don't keep repeating this too many times.  If you hear no difference after a few 20 second goes at this, then it's probably a job for a guitar tech.  If it works, do the same with your fingers on the 17th and 18th frets.

jca74

There is no problem involving excess metal that can't be fixed with an angle grinder....

Funkfingers

jca74 said:

There is no problem involving excess metal that can't be fixed with an angle grinder.

Reminds me of a notice, writ large, on the wall of a mechanical engineering workshop at the oil refinery where I used to work.

"Anything that can not be fixed with a hammer is an electrical problem."

relic245

BillDL said:

relic245 said:

I've just got a new (2nd hand) prs tremonti. ..... the high E is choking off when I bend at the 12th and 17th frets but no others.  I'm no expert but would assume that means that the 13th and 18th frets are high.

How far across the 12th and 17th frets does the High E string bend before it chokes out?

I'll take a guess here that it reaches the point between where the B and G strings normally pass over the fret.  Assuming that the 13th and 17th frets appear to be fully seated from the middle across to the treble side AND that your guitar does not have stainless steel frets, try this first and see whether it improves the choking or gets rid of it.

On the B String - 2nd finger on the 13th fret, and 3rd finger on the 14th, so the affected 13th fret is between your fretting fingers.  Do some wide vibrato bends (i.e. down and up) while fretting a little more firmly than normal and keep doing this for about 20 seconds.  Apply the greater pressure with your 2nd finger fairly close up to the 13th fret, don't dig in too much with the string, and stop immediately if you feel the string scraping the fret.  You are just trying to apply some accelerated natural wear to the 13th fret, and it probably won't need to be worn much at all to reduce or eliminate the choking out.  Don't keep repeating this too many times.  If you hear no difference after a few 20 second goes at this, then it's probably a job for a guitar tech.  If it works, do the same with your fingers on the 17th and 18th frets.

@BillDL ; You are correct in your guess of where it was choking. Thanks for the suggestion but it didn't make any difference. 

However I've now found an allen key that fits and I only needed a whole turn on the grubscrews to fix it.  That's not made any noticeable difference to the action so all good. 

Thanks again for the suggestion

BillDL

That's good.  It usually doesn't take much of an adjustment on the saddle screws to address a choking issue on one or more of the strings.  The thread pitch on an M3 saddle screw is 0.5mm, so one full rotation will raise or lower the saddle by  0.5mm.  This is approximately the same for imperial #4-48 grub screws used in USA guitars.  Most people will be able to feel a 0.5mm increase in action, but it's so small an increment that it's unlikely to make a well set up guitar feel significantly less playable.  I know that I would, and if the High E was 0.5mm higher up I think it might annoy me - unless of course it was actually 0.5mm too low to begin with.  It depends on the guitar type of course.

If it still niggles you there is one other thing you can try yourself that would be very difficult to mess anything up.

Firstly I would strongly suggest that you inspect the 12th and 16th frets to ensure it hasn't become a bit worn whereby the 13th fret is comparatively higher but not actually a high fret.  Perhaps the previous owner loved playing the BB King box pattern in A with a lot of bending on the high E and B strings at the 12th fret more than he played elsewhere, and had another favourite pattern that involved bending the treble strings at the 16th fret.

Use a fret rocker to confirm that the 13th and 17th frets are actually higher.  You can get a good one for about £8 from Chickenbone John's website (a member here):

https://www.chickenbonejohn.com/products/fret-rocker ; (watch from 6:13 in his embedded video).

If those frets are actually higher, the next time you have the strings off or loosened enough to pull them all off the outside edges of the fretboard and retained there, tape off either side of the 13th and 17th frets with a couple of layers of masking tape strips.  Tear off a small piece of fine wet & dry paper with a grit of about P400 or P600, double it over, and use your thumb or tip of one of your fingers to rub along the affected areas of those frets for a short while.  Being padded, your thumb or finger makes the abrasive paper conform roughly to the existing rounded crown of the fret, so while you are abrading off the most miniscule amount of metal you aren't flattening the fret in the area you are rubbing.  You would either have to rub with a lot of pressure or keep rubbing for quite a while to take off a significant enough amount of metal to cause any problems, but do this a bit at a time and see if you can lower the High E saddle a bit and not have it choking out on a bend.  You might have to polish the frets with a fret eraser or metal polish after this, but usually normal play restores the shine and smoothness very quickly.

I do this regularly on guitars that have good fretwork but one or two frets that are a tiny little bit high.

relic245

BillDL said:

That's good.  It usually doesn't take much of an adjustment on the saddle screws to address a choking issue on one or more of the strings.  The thread pitch on an M3 saddle screw is 0.5mm, so one full rotation will raise or lower the saddle by  0.5mm.  This is approximately the same for imperial #4-48 grub screws used in USA guitars.  Most people will be able to feel a 0.5mm increase in action, but it's so small an increment that it's unlikely to make a well set up guitar feel significantly less playable.  I know that I would, and if the High E was 0.5mm higher up I think it might annoy me - unless of course it was actually 0.5mm too low to begin with.  It depends on the guitar type of course.

If it still niggles you there is one other thing you can try yourself that would be very difficult to mess anything up.

Firstly I would strongly suggest that you inspect the 12th and 16th frets to ensure it hasn't become a bit worn whereby the 13th fret is comparatively higher but not actually a high fret.  Perhaps the previous owner loved playing the BB King box pattern in A with a lot of bending on the high E and B strings at the 12th fret more than he played elsewhere, and had another favourite pattern that involved bending the treble strings at the 16th fret.

Use a fret rocker to confirm that the 13th and 17th frets are actually higher.  You can get a good one for about £8 from Chickenbone John's website (a member here):

https://www.chickenbonejohn.com/products/fret-rocker ; (watch from 6:13 in his embedded video).

If those frets are actually higher, the next time you have the strings off or loosened enough to pull them all off the outside edges of the fretboard and retained there, tape off either side of the 13th and 17th frets with a couple of layers of masking tape strips.  Tear off a small piece of fine wet & dry paper with a grit of about P400 or P600, double it over, and use your thumb or tip of one of your fingers to rub along the affected areas of those frets for a short while.  Being padded, your thumb or finger makes the abrasive paper conform roughly to the existing rounded crown of the fret, so while you are abrading off the most miniscule amount of metal you aren't flattening the fret in the area you are rubbing.  You would either have to rub with a lot of pressure or keep rubbing for quite a while to take off a significant enough amount of metal to cause any problems, but do this a bit at a time and see if you can lower the High E saddle a bit and not have it choking out on a bend.  You might have to polish the frets with a fret eraser or metal polish after this, but usually normal play restores the shine and smoothness very quickly.

I do this regularly on guitars that have good fretwork but one or two frets that are a tiny little bit high.

Sounds like a good plan.

You're right I can feel the hight increase slight but I know I'll soon get used to it.

In general I'm happy to play guitars as they are and adapt rather than needing them set to my exacting requirements.

Having said that I would like to learn some basic fettling skills and this could be the perfect opportunity.

TheMarlin

You will do more damage than good. Take it to a luthier. A single fret won’t be expensive