A good friend brought me the neck for his Jazz Bass to be refretted.  Before doing anything I mounted it on a surrogate body and strung it up to make sure the neck was adjusting properly and to check for any abnormalities.  Everything looked good.  It had a nice gradual curve under tension and adjusted easily.

The first thing to do was remove the nut.  The neck is bound so it will need to be pulled upward. I scored around the edges to separate it from the finish and pulled it up with a pair of end nippers.  It came out cleanly with little effort.

Removing the frets went easily as well.  The finish was not heavily built up around the frets. I heated them gently with a soldering iron and slowly worked along their length with the fret pullers.  Here is a short video of the process.

With all of the frets removed it was time to determine which replacement frets to use.  Using a tang width slightly larger than the original can stiffen a weak neck and is advisable if the slots a very worn.  The closest wire I could find was exactly the same as the original but the slots were so clean and the neck was fairly stiff so I decided it was a good fit.

I was lucky that the finish on this maple fingerboard is not very thick.  There weren’t any ridges around the fret slots.  I used a simple neck jig with adjustable arms to hold the neck stationary during the refretting and leveling.  I adjusted the neck as close to flat as I could manage and moved the arms up behind the neck to support it.

It is important to prepare the replacement wire carefuly.  I first cleaned it with acetone to remove any grease from the factory. Running it though a fret bender creates a consistent curve slightly tighter than the neck radius.  I first cut them a little over long and then trim the tang to fit just inside the binding.  The tang nipper from Stuart-MacDonald does this very well.  After the tang is trimmed I put each piece in a small fret grinding jig to bevel the ends.  The jig is just a block of wood with a groove to hold the fret at a constand angle as it is pushed into a sanding disk.  I bevel just a few thousandths of an inch from the trimmed tang.  I burnish the tiny overhang to curl the sharp edge under and then polish the ends on a buffing wheel.  I use a jewelry polishing compound called Zam.  It polishes the ends and rounds all of the sharp edges in one step.  The reside from buffing is easily removed with naptha just prior to installing the frets.

I press the frets in using  a special clamp from Stuart-Macdonald which accepts grooved radiused cauls to match the fretboard radius.  Although it is a bit tedious I press each fret 3 times starting with a caul one size down to seat the fret ends, then with one that matches the radius, and then one larger just to make sure the center seats completely.  In this case I am also using hot hide glue for a little extra holding strength.  It also makes the frets press in a little easier.

I start by applying the hot hide glue, and then press with my first caul.  Since the neck radius is 7.25″ I started with a 6″ caul.

After the first pressing the hide glue has cooled and gelled so I heat the fret with a soldering iron to liquify the glue again and proceed to the 7.25″ caul and the 9″ caul.

With all the frets installed the final step is leveling and crowning.  I use a metal leveling bar with self adhesive sandpaper to level the tops of the frets.  I sand until all of the top show sanding marks being sure to preserve the radius of the frets.

For crowning I used diamond crowning files and clean up the filing marks with sandpaper and steel wool. (I didn’t take pictures at this stage, I’ll have to add some later from other jobs.)

Since the string slots in the old nut were now too low for the new taller frets I made a new bone nut.