The Black Jim Root telecaster with a couple of dents around the 7th (I think) fret on the 1 and 2nd string.  The two dents we’re really strange, very specific to the one fret on those two strings but enough of a problem to drastically affect the playability.

So, first things first… clean this guitar up! Remove the dirt, dust and grime from the body, neck and fretboard and then go to town on the frets.

There were a couple of ways to fix this… re-fret or fret dress. I went with the fret dress option, it retains the original frets and breathes new life into your guitar.

A fret dress takes time and patience but the end result is an incredible playing guitar without having to remove and replace all the frets on the board! So the first step is to remove the neck from the body and then make your trusted adjustment to get the neck as straight as possible.

Once straight, I tape off the board (get the tape as close to the frets as possible, leaving the frets exposed and protecting the fretboard). Then it’s time to level the frets. You do this by marking the top of the fret with a sharpie, take a levelling beam with 300 grit sandpaper (I used an 8” beam) and then following the radius of the neck sand down and level the frets until all of the black sharpie has gone and you’re dent free.

The next step is to mark the flat frets with the sharpie again. Then using a diamond fret crowning file work from the outside of the frets into the centre to leave a tight hairline down the centre of the fret.  Follow this across the entire fretboard and you’re good to go.

Once you’ve dressed the frets it’s time to take the 1500 grit – 12000 grit sandpaper and polish up those frets, removing any remaining marks! The last step is to re-string and set up the guitar.