Tools for fretwork?

[AwakenTheSkies]

You honestly overthink it.

Get one decent tool (whatever it is: Z file, 3 corner, whatever) and give it a shot. As long as you mark the top of the fret and know when to stop, crowning is hard to mess up. Just be careful when sanding afterwards that you don't sand over the top too much and too early (personally I don't touch the top of the fret until I am at like P800+ and then I stay very even).

Leveling is a tad more technical because it's easier than you think to rock the beam, angle it or just not put the light homogeneous pressure it needs.

Yeah I'm just talking at this point. Waiting for the paycheck so I can order the stuff I need.
Impatient to get started, it's a good thing I have these old cheap guitars to practice on.

 

[AwakenTheSkies]

I ordered the stuff. In the end I got the Music Nomad S-File.

 

[CrystalSky]

There is gonna be metal shavings if you fret level or crown anyway so you still need to tape the pickups up for that and the steel wool barely adds anymore mess to what's already there so I wouldnt exactly say it's not clean but whatever works for you.

I am not the op, I don’t need level or crown, just bring back the shine to my EvoGolds

 

[LeftOurEyes]

I am not the op, I don’t need level or crown, just bring back the shine to my EvoGolds

You never said what you were doing so I responded to your questions how I did given the topic of the thread, but I think your missing my point that steel wool is not messy and that you are overthinking things. It takes like 10 seconds to tape up the pickups and there will be just a few tiny flakes so the "mess" of using steel wool is basically nothing. You originally asked about using sandpaper and steel wool would be much easier to use than sandpaper would be.

 

[CleansingCarnage]

Steel wool leaves little shavings everywhere, taping off the pickups is definitely necessary even if you're just using it to polish.

 

[LeftOurEyes]

Steel wool leaves little shavings everywhere, taping off the pickups is definitely necessary even if you're just using it to polish.

Certainly, but I wouldn't call it messy cause the only cleaning needed after the polish with steel wool is to pull the tape off.

 

[AwakenTheSkies]

So you think the leveling is more complicated than the crowning? Practicing crowning seems easy, because I can just file and crown the same fret over and over until I feel I have it down.
But how do I practice the leveling? Wonder how many levels I can do until the frets have to be changed...
This is the cheap practice guitars I'm talking about.

 

[CleansingCarnage]

So you think the leveling is more complicated than the crowning? Practicing crowning seems easy, because I can just file and crown the same fret over and over until I feel I have it down.
But how do I practice the leveling? Wonder how many levels I can do until the frets have to be changed...
This is the cheap practice guitars I'm talking about.

In my opinion leveling is super easy and crowning is the part that takes a bit of technique. With leveling you just run your bar or file or whatever over the frets until they're... level, lol. Which can actually take a while and is harder to mess up by not going far enough than the other way around.

 

[lost_horizon]

Thank you. I'll buy things from Madinter in Spain, they sell Stewmac stuff as well. Though from what I've seen Stewmac stuff is expensive. What if I buy something like Hosco diamond fret file?
The notched straight edge that might be a pita. My guitars are 24,75", 25", 25,1", and 26,5"

Here's the deal, with a straight edge you just move it one way or the other depending on the scale length, e.g. with a 25.5 inch straight edge you would move it one fret to the right for 26.5 inch etc. I have a dual edge straight edge 25.5 and 24.75 and it works for 99% of guitars.

 

[AwakenTheSkies]

Here's the deal, with a straight edge you just move it one way or the other depending on the scale length, e.g. with a 25.5 inch straight edge you would move it one fret to the right for 26.5 inch etc. I have a dual edge straight edge 25.5 and 24.75 and it works for 99% of guitars.

I got the Music Nomad Tri-Beam. Three sides 24,75", 25,5" and normal straight edge. Should be good for all my guitars.