Tricky fret removal on a Fender neck

[FELINEGUITARS]

Something we often have to explain is that Fender guitars made before 1984 need special treatment when it comes to refretting.

The big deal is that the frets have to be removed differently to other guitars.
At the Fender factory the necks were fretted by sliding sharped frets into the slots sideways - going from the bass side to the treble.
If you then try to pull these frets out the normal way the barbs on the fret's tang pull up through layers of wood that were not cut into by the barbs when the frets went in like they would on a different brand of guitar.
This would usually result in a high risk of damage  to the fingerboard - we kind of only found this info out in about 1990.

I sure wish I'd known before then - would have made for more professional results on previous work


Today in the workshop we had just such a job to do.
Whilst I was doing it Tom started taking pictures with his phone , so  thought why not film it to show what we do .

So here is a short clip to give an idea of how the frets have to come out........

http://youtu.be/MWQVPpYp5zM

[Frank]

Ouch. That looks like a job best left to those who know what they're doing, especially with the skinny little frets on really old Fenders. I imagine my 1983 strat will need this kind of attention soon.

[MrBump]

Interesting, Jon.  Can you tell by looking at the neck, without knowing the age of the guitar?

It seems like an odd thing for Fender to do - I would have thought it more labour intensive than just banging the frets in.

[FELINEGUITARS]

Fender had it down to a slick art from what I can tell.
I think the operaters of the machine were pretty quick at it
You can't really tell from looking , but basically anything up to the sell-off by CBS will be sideways fretted

[Philly Q]

As always, great clip - I'd be absolutely terrified of attempting something like that!  :lol:

[Oli]

Very interesting! I'd heard about the sideways frets, but had never considered how to get them out the same way they went in! I assume that without the proper machinery, it's basically impossible to put them back in that way, and you'd put the new ones in the 'traditional' way?