PRS – Fret Dress and Setup

I can’t say I’ve ever really been a fan of PRS Guitars, they’re normally better than this one though.  This one has some rather uneven frets so it’s never going to play well as it is.  A fret-dress and a setup will sort that lot out though.

PRS Guitar on the bench before the setup

Using a Fret Rocker over 3 frets there should be no movement but it’s rattling a little.

A fret-rocker, a calibrated straight edge placed over 3 frets. If the fret tops are even then it will not move or "rattle"

With the string off, the nut removed and the neck levelled, the fret tops are sanded down with a calibrated beam.

Sanding the fret tops with a calibrated beam.

This is about half way through, you can see from the marker pen on the frets where the low points are.  Once the file has gone down to these low points it’s time to stop.

half way through dressing the fret tops. You can see from the marker pen where the low spots are.

Once the tops are nice and level each one now needs to be rounded of again.

Rounding off the fret tops with a fret crowning file.

With the frets levelled and re-crowned each one now needs to be re-polished using 4 finer and finer grades of micromesh.

Re-polished fret tops.

With the frets sorted out all it needs now is a setup to get it playing properly.

Assessing the action height at the 12th fret.

A setup is a fairly simple, step by step approach to make any guitar play and feel better.

Adjusting the action height at the bridge

There it is, playing really well now.

For any other work you might need go to www.guitar-george.co.uk

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