Fender Telecaster Refret for Robby Coffin

Tuesday, February 5th, 2019

Back in December, we replaced the truss rod nut on Robby Coffin's Telecaster for his upcoming gig with Devonsquare. In that post we mentioned that the guitar was in need of a fret job and it has now returned for that repair.

One of the interesting things about this guitar is that it received one of the first fret jobs ever professionally done by Kennebec Instrument & Amplifier. A nickel refret was chosen at that time to keep the cost down but, this time we will be going for stainless steel.

With the guitar in our neck jig, we begin removing all of the old frets.

Like with any refret, we sand the playing surface before installation begins. This ensures that all of the frets will be able to be installed properly but it also corrects any irregularities in the playing surface, This guitar had a few that this process will correct.

Unlike rosewood and ebony fretboards, maple requires a coat of lacquer to be applied. Sanding the playing surface for a refret removes this finish so it will need to be reapplied. Once the new frets are installed, we sand the rest of the finish on the neck before spraying the lacquer coats.

The neck is then taped off so we can buff the frets separately.

We then use our larger buffing wheel to buff the finish on the entire neck.

Here, you can see the completed fret job and new bone nut, highlighted by the great new finish as well.

A setup is performed on the guitar and, with that and the new stainless steel frets, it is ready to for decades more of heavy use!

Fender Telecaster Refret for Robby Coffin

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