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Comments
Since any fret and fingerboard work does away with originality, you might as well have an entire new fingerboard made.
I would say that a new fingerboard is a *much* bigger loss of originality than a refret - which is usually seen as fairly non-invasive, if done appropriately - but is still the only practical way to do it.
Is it really an issue to leave it flat? I know that's not normal for an electric guitar, but if it's a known feature of this model - and the model is in any way valuable - then it would probably be best to live with it.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
On a 12" radius, the middle of the fret is about 0.75 to 1mm higher than the ends (increases as you move up the neck, the height difference increases overall as the radius reduces). You'd have to start with pretty high fret wire to still have a decent amount of fret height at the ends, and you'd have abnormally high frets up the centre of the neck. I'd imagine that would feel rather weird when playing.
I'd be more inclined to accept that the guitar is what it is and keep it flat. Maybe change the profile of the fret wire, but I'd leave the non-radius as-is.
Nomad
Nobody loves me but my mother... and she could be jivin' too...
If the fingerboard is so thin that it could be considered a veneer, it might be wise to have the tangs nipped off near the ends of each fret. This may reduce the likelihood of splitting.
In the spirit of leaving the guitar as you would wish to find it, the safest solution is to leave the fingerboard flat and pay to have the refret performed by a repairer with a good reputation.
If you fancy bigger than original frets, just have a correspondingly taller zero fret installed to compensate.