How do you deal with sharp fret ends?

How do you deal with sharp fret ends? There are a couple of reasons why your fret ends can seem sharp making the guitar hard and painful to play.

  1. The guitar was just badly made in the first place…
  2. The wood has dried out and shrunk a little, so leaving the fret ends poking out.

The cure is the same in each case.  This fine old Tokai is suffering from the latter.  It’s a good few years old and the wood of the neck has shrunk back just a little.

1980s Tokai "Stratocaster" type guitar in need of some work

It’s difficult to see, the picture below is the neck before starting, but the fret tangs are proud of the neck just enough to make playing uncomfortable.

A close-up view of the fret ends on a 1980s Tokai "Stratocaster". The fret ends are protruding from the neck and are a little sharp.

It’s quite a simple job, it just needs to be done very carefully.  Take a very fine file and very gently blend in the frets to the level of the wood, without removing any wood.

Very carefully using a fine file to smooth the sharp fret ends on a Tokai "Stratocaster.

All it needs now is a proper setup and it’ll be ready to go again…..

A 1980s Tokai "Stratocaster" after having it's sharp fret ends sorted out and fully services and setup

For anything else then go to www.guitar-george.co.uk

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *