stewmac.com
page 8 of 9
11.
When the neck is re-zeroed to your satisfaction, slide
the neck supports up against the back of the neck. These
rods keep the neck from flexing while you level the frets or
the fretboard.
12.
Here a fret leveler is used to level the tops of the frets.
Whether you're doing a complete refret, or a fret-dress job,
once the frets have been leveled you can remove it from the
Neck Jig to finish the details at your workbench.
The guitar can remain in the Neck Jig throughout an entire
fret job if you’re pressing in frets, but don’t hammer on the
frets over the support rods and dial indicators— the hammer
blows can cause support rods to dent the back of the neck.
Even when you hammer over the body extension, put cush-
ioning material between the neck and the support rods to
prevent damage.
9.
The neck will backbow with the strings removed, and the
dial settings will no longer read zero. In our case, the dial
nearest the nut has compressed .031" (left photo) and the
dial nearest the body has compressed .008" (right photo).
These are typical readings.
10.
Slowly raise the peghead jack until the dials read zero
again. If the rear dial is off, tighten down the peghead strap
until zeroed. Go back and forth between these adjustments,
until both dials remain as close to zero as possible.
Depending on the neck, you may not always get perfect
zeros. If the peghead jack and pull-down strap don’t zero the
dials to your satisfaction, use your straightedge as a guide
while forcing the neck into the same configuration you saw
when in the playing position.