Telecaster build - fret crowning and polishing

It's time for a coming together of body and neck... 



The neck pocket was probably a little tighter than it needed to be and needed a little 'encouragement':



There was no lacquer chip out around the neck pocket, and given the truss rod can be adjusted without removing the neck, there will be no need to be able to remove this that frequently (plus the internet insists on a tight neck pocket for 'the tone'...)

Neck plate on;



And the scratch plate is offered up. I won't be using this scratch plate either - it's mint green, but to my eyes there's a little too much green in it. I'll check ebay for 'vintage white' or something similar tomorrow:



Next up, I start to recrown the frets. After flattening, their shapes are all uneven and as some have been flattened more than others, they all have different thickness tops. When we recrown them, we put the domed cross section back on them.

First, they're Sharpie'd up again:



Then we run a file along the edges to make them semicircular again. I won't descibr in detail how to do it here, there's plenty of youtube tutorials. Anyway, we round the edges of the frets with a safe edged file, leaving the top untouched (so the Sharpie stays on!). The reason for leaving the top is that we've already spent a considerable length of time in flattening the tops of the frets relative to each other.

After they've been rounded, they look something like this, note how the Sharpie line is untouched but much thinner:



This is done for all the frets. They're then sanded with 800 - 1500 grit paper. I wrap a bit around my finger and run it across the frets - my finger acting as a soft pad to gently polish the frets

At this point, they've been polished to about 1500:



Certain manufacturers would leave the frets at this level of polish. However, we can go further! I hit them with some metal polishing compound:



Which makes them significantly more shiny (on the left):



Once all the frets are fully polished:



And with the tape removed:



The frets look good, but I'm not particularly strong at this aspect of guitar setup. I'll see how they play, but it's possible it may have to take a trip to a friendly luthier for a real setup and fret job :]

I'm going to order some pickups and the rest of the electrical parts tomorrow, then with a bit of luck we should be able to get a sound out of it shortly afterwards!