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Polishing Frets on a Jazz Guitar

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I hit upon a lucky eBay find, and managed to acquire a mid-1990’s Korean-made Epiphone Howard Roberts guitar for a great price. It’s a terrific jazz box, and is really fun to play.

As with many older guitars, the frets were tarnished and dull, so I decided to polish them using the Dremel Polishing Kit technique using my Dremel Multi-Tool. I wrote about this technique before, so here’s recap of the instructions along with pictures of the process and results.

Dull frets in need of polish
Dull frets in need of polish
Set guitar on a safe surface before removing all strings.
Set guitar on a safe surface before removing all strings.
Use "blue" tape to protect the fretboard and neck. Blue tape is not as sticky as regular masking tape.
Use "blue" tape to protect the fretboard and neck. Blue tape is not as sticky as regular masking tape.
All taped up, with remaining surfaces protected with shop towels.
All taped up, with remaining surfaces protected with shop towels.
Standard Dremel Multi-Tool with the felt polishing disk and container of polishing compound.
Standard Dremel Multi-Tool with the felt polishing disk and container of polishing compound.
Set the Dremel to medium speed and spend about 20-30 seconds per fret until all of the fret surface is polished.
Set the Dremel to medium speed and spend about 20-30 seconds per fret until all of the fret surface is polished.
All frets polished and shiny, ready to remove the tape.
All frets polished and shiny, ready to remove the tape.
Beautiful shiny polished frets. A little lemon oil will be rubbed on the rosewood fretboard before restringing.
Beautiful shiny polished frets. A little lemon oil will be rubbed on the rosewood fretboard before restringing.
Shiny frets and shiny strings.
Shiny frets and shiny strings.
Dremel Polishing Kit
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