After 5 years of woodshedding, the frets on this ErnieBall Musicman Silhouette Special are worn resulting in fret buzz. A re-fret is in order and the owner of the instrument chose to go with my preferred and highly recommended fretwire which is similar to the popular Dunlop 6105 fretwire. The fretwire I use is 0.010" narrower than the 6105s.

The frets are removed with minimal chipping along the fret slots. This is not a problem, as the chips will be sanded out while prepping the fingerboard for the new frets.

The fingerboard is now perfectly leveled, finish sanded, fret slots cleaned up and re-cut. We’re now ready to fret.

The frets are seated, filed flush, and beveled. Thanks to the immaculate prep work, sans for a few frets; almost all the frets are seated at level with one another. We may be able to do away with the dressing of all the frets.

The guitar is strung up. The taller frets are identified and marked. There was a total of only 4 frets that needed dressing. This is a more time consuming way to check and dress the frets but I think the effort is worth it as the rest of the frets are left untouched and fret height not compromised in any way.

The 4 frets in question are dressed and all the frets are polished before the guitar is strung up again.

A new graphite nut is fitted, the guitar is set up and all ready to go.