For that little bit of wear, I wouldn't worry about it. You could file it down but then you would have one or several frets lower than the others. You would have to do them all and then possible lower the nut and the bridge.

 

Thanks.

When do we start bothering?


And... Is there something that can be done to help preventing /reducing that?

 

When you start getting fret buzz is a good indicator. Some lighthanded players can play a guitar for many years and never even have to dress the frets, let alone do a refret. Heavy handed players that play a lot might need to do more than one per year. There is no real answer as it depends on each player and how finicky we are.

 

Some people say they dress their frets. What do they mean?

 

If you give the frets a light going over when divots are just starting to appear then the job is easy, so I try to tell people to do it as a regular maintenance issue instead of waiting until it is a big expensive job. Better to keep them touched up, how often depends on how heavy handed you are.

 

Some people say they dress their frets. What do they mean?

Here are a couple links for you, one for tools and a video.

Search Results for Fret dressing tools | stewmac.com

 

Here's a Don't - lean a guitar against the fretboard - I bought a used guitar that had been bumped string side or was set to lean against the neck face. I could feel the dents on multiple frets when bending the strings (E/B), enough to make clicking sounds. Usually these can be gently sanded out. Had this on a couple instances.
Re wear , wide jumbo will also wear much less, given the larger radius crown.

I wonder though if others notice or detect intonation differences when hitting heavily worn frets? I kinda felt I did on one guitar.

 

If a person was needing a lot of dressing of his frets and fairly often needed a refret, I would think it would be best to go to stainless steel. It is harder and lasts longer.

 

SRV went through frets as often as I go through strings. Man had some power in those big mitts

 

The answer for when it's time to dress the frets is...when any buzzes due to grooves in the frets can no longer be dealt with by adjusting the set up.

 

There's a limit to # of refrets, right ? Or do some of you do fret slot restorations too ?
Oops, sorry, I think that is moot in the context that repairs just get more challenging (or expensive) until the next higher level assembly part makes more sense to replace ( fretboard).
Reminds me of a car I had.

 

There's definitely a limited number of fret dresses you can do before it needs to be refretted, but I never considered that there MIGHT be a limited number of refrets you could do. I would think that a limit on refretting would be a result of a poor fret job along the way somewhere, but I could be wrong.