Re: What are you buying, What's on its way?
362That sets my ocd alarm bells ringing! I could see me unable to play for more than 2 minutes without reaching for it to level imagined imperfections!
*reaches for wallet*
Re: What are you buying, What's on its way?
363Its a "Fret Kisser", which sounds like an insult that has been hurled at Rudy Sarzo at least once in his life*.
Stewmac and others make a thing called a "fret rocker" which looks like so:
Its basically a high-fret identification tool. The idea is that you place it over three frets on a guitar neck and if it rocks back and forth the middle fret is higher than the others. It has four sides of different lengths so that it'll work all up the neck from wide-spaced frets to narrow-spaced ones.
The fret kisser is similar but thicker and the middle of each side is embedded with 300-grit diamond file abrasive. So you use the rocker to identify the high spots, and then you can use the kisser to file them down. The standard way of doing this usually involves leveling the frets on the entire neck all at once, then crowning and polishing them which is a bigger task. The kisser option should allow for spot leveling just the problem areas, then crowning and polishing those.
*because Whitesnake
Re: What are you buying, What's on its way?
365Other guitar-fixer dudes may have a different take on this- but I would say about 80% of the time when I find a high fret, using a standard fret-rocker it is because it has become unseated in the slot. When that is the case, no matter how much you file, it'll always spring back up. I use a small plastic-faced mallet to reseat them, and if that doesn't work, I use a brass 'Fret Setter' Occasionally I've resorted to a steel faced hammer, but only if I know I'm gonna need to reshape and polish that fret.Dr Tony Balls wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:28 pmIts a "Fret Kisser", which sounds like an insult that has been hurled at Rudy Sarzo at least once in his life*.
Stewmac and others make a thing called a "fret rocker" which looks like so:
Its basically a high-fret identification tool. The idea is that you place it over three frets on a guitar neck and if it rocks back and forth the middle fret is higher than the others. It has four sides of different lengths so that it'll work all up the neck from wide-spaced frets to narrow-spaced ones.
The fret kisser is similar but thicker and the middle of each side is embedded with 300-grit diamond file abrasive. So you use the rocker to identify the high spots, and then you can use the kisser to file them down. The standard way of doing this usually involves leveling the frets on the entire neck all at once, then crowning and polishing them which is a bigger task. The kisser option should allow for spot leveling just the problem areas, then crowning and polishing those.
*because Whitesnake
When I do need to file a fret, I use a fret rocker to figure out which parts of the fret are high, mark them w/ a sharpie, then use a standard fine flat file to remove material, rechecking and remarking every couple strokes. When we're all level I mark it again, then use a crowning file to remove the edges, returning the rounded top. Then sand with #320 to remove file marks, #600 to remove scratches, then steel wool to polish. That is usually fancy enough for the level of work we do on a $70 set up.
All that is to say, building a file into the fret rocker seems like a bad idea, as it'll just encourage people to file frets that shouldn't be filed. I kinda view fret material as sacred, and don't want to ever remove something I don't have to.
Re: What are you buying, What's on its way?
366That is essentially what we do, use a fret rocker to find the problems, flat with the truss rod, flat edge to ensure you don’t have any end to end problems, and then flat file, crowning, sand/polish. We use a lot more sandpaper grits, different goals.c jury wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 10:07 pmOther guitar-fixer dudes may have a different take on this- but I would say about 80% of the time when I find a high fret, using a standard fret-rocker it is because it has become unseated in the slot. When that is the case, no matter how much you file, it'll always spring back up. I use a small plastic-faced mallet to reseat them, and if that doesn't work, I use a brass 'Fret Setter' Occasionally I've resorted to a steel faced hammer, but only if I know I'm gonna need to reshape and polish that fret.Dr Tony Balls wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:28 pmIts a "Fret Kisser", which sounds like an insult that has been hurled at Rudy Sarzo at least once in his life*.
Stewmac and others make a thing called a "fret rocker" which looks like so:
Its basically a high-fret identification tool. The idea is that you place it over three frets on a guitar neck and if it rocks back and forth the middle fret is higher than the others. It has four sides of different lengths so that it'll work all up the neck from wide-spaced frets to narrow-spaced ones.
The fret kisser is similar but thicker and the middle of each side is embedded with 300-grit diamond file abrasive. So you use the rocker to identify the high spots, and then you can use the kisser to file them down. The standard way of doing this usually involves leveling the frets on the entire neck all at once, then crowning and polishing them which is a bigger task. The kisser option should allow for spot leveling just the problem areas, then crowning and polishing those.
*because Whitesnake
When I do need to file a fret, I use a fret rocker to figure out which parts of the fret are high, mark them w/ a sharpie, then use a standard fine flat file to remove material, rechecking and remarking every couple strokes. When we're all level I mark it again, then use a crowning file to remove the edges, returning the rounded top. Then sand with #320 to remove file marks, #600 to remove scratches, then steel wool to polish. That is usually fancy enough for the level of work we do on a $70 set up.
All that is to say, building a file into the fret rocker seems like a bad idea, as it'll just encourage people to file frets that shouldn't be filed. I kinda view fret material as sacred, and don't want to ever remove something I don't have to.
I think it’s stew mac although I couldn’t find it, but someone somewhere made a leveling file with it’s own truss rod and there are situations where that could be useful
Last edited by TylerDeadPine on Thu Jun 02, 2022 3:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: What are you buying, What's on its way?
367Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees the title of this thread and immediately thinks of the Merchant from Resi 4?
"What am I gonna do with 40 subscriptions to Vibe?"
I talk disjointed music-related guff over here. You're welcome.
I talk disjointed music-related guff over here. You're welcome.
Re: What are you buying, What's on its way?
368So as someone who absolutely wore that game out, played, replayed...on multiple platforms....unlocked everything & every secret weapon/outfit, I have to tell you I was laughing to tears on that video you shared. Thank you SO much for that. RE4 still one of the best game ever made IMO and if it was on the Switch I'd probably buy it and play it all over again.the letter o wrote: Thu Jun 02, 2022 10:09 am Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees the title of this thread and immediately thinks of the Merchant from Resi 4?
[EDIT: I gues it IS on the Switch and I'm probably going to DL this afternoon although the Wii version I think is hard to beat with the on-screen aiming via controller stick]
My partner was so sick of the merchant that she would say that any time "going to the store" was brought up.
Oh and while I didn't before, I will now always hear this in my head when I see this title. Thanks...?
Re: What are you buying, What's on its way?
369I played through RE4 again on the Wii about a year ago. Still holds up.
There's a callback to the RE4 merchant in RE: Village.
There's a callback to the RE4 merchant in RE: Village.