StewMac Guitar Fret Leveling File, 6" Length (0862) – Hardwood Handle – Works on Nickel-Silver & Stainless-Steel Frets

Not a cheap tool by any means but for what a luthier charges, if I use it on 2 guitars it's paid for itself. Granted, most of guitars today are made well enough that fret sprout can sometimes be a rarity but with so many instruments coming from Indonesia, China, Korea, etc. now, you will inevitably run into that one guitar that the neck shrunk in transit, it's going to happen! Even on U.S. made guitars as well. Simply grab a roll of painters tape, watch one of the hundreds of videos on YT and save yourself some money. Add to your order a small quality fret file of your choice and create your own amazing fretwork, yeah you can do it! Finish it off with a nail emory board and it feels like a pro did it. All it takes is some patience and time. How much time just depends on how good you want your frets to feel.

Worked fantastic. Fret sprout be gone !

A total OMG moment. Im an avid guitar player and collector. I have my personal luthier I take my guitars to for setups and or problem issues. Im tired of paying for this service. I watched a couple how to videos using this product along with a couple other Stew Mac fret finishing products. I put in about an hour fixing a horrible fret sprout and fret finish project and was able to turn a Fender Vintera high gloss neck into a VERY comfortable playing neck using this wood file, a small fret file and their tongue depressor sized small file. I’ll have these tools forever for all my guitars. No longer worried about the results. PERFECT

Only fret work I felt comfortable doing is polishing. I have a few low end guitars with sharp fret ends. I used this on the least expensive one that had the most issues. It worked GREAT. Watch some Stewmac youtube vids before using and you shouldn't have any issues. After using this, the fret file to round the fret ends, the polishing pads (up to 12000), the Frets were perfect. Can't believe I could have had these guitars looking and feeling great this whole time. Definitely check out the Stewmac vids on YouTube. They're Very helpful and informative when it comes to ANY Aspect of the guitar work. For me atleast, all the questions I needed answered were there. 🤘😝🤘

This review would be 5 stars, but one side of the file sticks out past the wooden handle. The file grooves or teeth that stick out are quite sharp and can easily draw blood if you are not careful. I will have to with file the sharp edges down or cover it with a rubber strip. Not terrible, but I expected more from a $60 dollar tool. The file works very well and is otherwise a very nice quality unit.

I bought 2 of these several years ago and they were both perfect for the job, but were stolen at the shop I worked at. I took a chance on a couple of cheap Alibaba units and they had slightly twisted files. Not perfectly flat. Good for ruff work but but that's it. These StewmMac units give you what you pay for. Great buy!

I had a Manouche guitar with a hump at frets 14, 15, and 16. (This is the second Manouche guitar I've had with this problem, I'm actually wondering if it's a problem with the breed). Anyways, I had gotten it mostly fixed with other files and steel wool for afters, but it seemed a little ragged and still had a little buzz on the high strings. In short, I was tired of dinking around with it. Bought this file and bazinga, 15 minutes of levelling and a final dressing with the rounding file and everything was great. Worked great, frets look great, it's a step up for sure. The only reason I'd grump about it is the price of the thing. But it is what it is. It will make this chore easy in future, so maybe I can make up the money by scoring some diamond-in-the-rough guitars and reselling them after a quick fix.

This is no exception - well built, comfortable to use - just does its job perfectly. The only negative on anything Stew Mac is the price. Once you have paid for it and you are using it, you will be happy you have it.

Bei genauer Betrachtung sieht man, dass die Feile leicht gekrümmt oder verzogen ist. Das ist ein absolutes Ausschlusskriterium, da man sich deswegen die Bünde ruinieren würde. Außerdem ist diese Feile zu kurz um damit eine ordentliche Nivellierung aller Bünde zu erreichen. In diesem Zustand ist dieses Werkzeug nicht zu gebrauchen. Ging leider wieder zurück.