It would be easy to write 100 pages or more about frets and fretwork. Dan Erlewine of Stewart-MacDonald has a terrific 125 page book on the subject. My intent here is to simply outline some everyday fret problems and solutions.

One of the most frequent inquiries from acoustic players concerns the fairly deep grooves that develop on the first three to five frets of the E and B strings. I’ve had customers who were convinced that this common fretwear problem required a complete fret job to the tune of $250 or more. Nope, those grooves can be really deep and really ugly before fretwork in necessary. I advise dressing or replacing these frets only when the tone is suffering. Buzzing and/or the dreaded “sitar” sound means you need to spend some money but don’t let anyone sell you a fret job if YOU don’t hear a problem. Trust your ears and your fingers.

Another common problem, especially in low humidity conditions are sharp protruding fret ends. I won’t go into the many aspects of how humidity affects instruments in this post but the sharp fret end problem is generally a simple fix with a modest price tag.

Frets that are lifting out of their slots are frequently encountered on older instruments that have been refretted a couple of times. These can be problematic but very careful use of super glue can secure them if the slots aren’t too sloppy. Often a gentle tap with a fretting hammer will do the trick but super glue is generally needed. Don ‘t try this on your own without a lot of practice as super glue is very thin and will go EVERYWHERE making a world class mess.

Frets that are corroded and discolored are ugly and they feel just plain terrible. Cleaning and polishing will solve this problem and should be part of any full setup or detail cleaning.

These are some of the simple-to-deal-with fret problems that can be rectified without the expense of a full refret. There are plenty of reasons to have a full fret job performed but don’t assume you have to drop the $250 or more for a quality refret if you have some (or all) of the symptoms I’ve mentioned. If a guitar tech recommends a full refret don’t be afraid to question that recommendation or to ask if there may be an interim solution. If the answers you get don’t seem to make sense it may be prudent to get another opinion.

In a future post I’ll go into more detail on when and why to refret and how to make sure you get what you want.