Seeking Guidance on Refretting a USA Standard Custom

[TheGuitarHack]

Hey, everyone! I feel a bit like the Prodigal Son, as it's been so long since I've hung out with the HFC. I hope life has been good to you all in the meanwhile!

I am the original owner of a '96 Hamer USA Standard Custom, and it's long overdue for being refretted. Before I have someone do this for me, I thought I'd better reach out to my Hamer-loving brothers and sisters. Here goes...

• Is it a forgone conclusion that I would lose the binding along the existing fret edges? My guess is that a luthier would have to trim those when replacing each fret, but I'm not totally sure on that. Any thoughts?
• The nut would have to be replaced due to the newer/higher frets. The stock nut appears to be some sort of nylon material. Any thoughts on whether the replacement nut should be nylon as well, or should I consider bone instead? For what it's worth, when I had my budget acoustic refretted, the plastic nut was replaced with a bone nut, and *wow*, it certainly improved the tone of that guitar. Not sure if that was due to the material, or maybe just because the new nut was "installed better", but regardless, it just plain rings better than it ever did before!

Any other advice you'd like to share on this, for questions I didn't think to ask?

In any event, I appreciate any advice you all could offer on this. I love this guitar, so I obviously want to go into the process confident of what I need to have done. I figure a good starting point, would be to go the folks that may have had their own Hamer's refretted, or from luthiers who hang out here who might work on Hamer's themselves. In any event, thanks for any guidance you can share!

The Guitar Hack

[BTMN]

Although he is pretty busy with the Ultimate run, I would ask Northfield about doing it. Nothing like having an original Hamer builder do a refret for you. Bone nut or a TUSQ brand nut would be my choice.

[Studio Custom]

You can spare the knubs, it just costs more to do so.

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

Your binding is not touched on a re-fret and can be left intact. We use tang niblers to cut the tang from fret wire before inserting... then we trim and file the over-hang once all frets have been inserted. Co-incidentally, I'm re-fretting a bound neck this week (on one of my own guitars)...

As I'll be using my new home-built (Stewmac copied) neck jig for the first time, I'll be video-documenting my re-fret on my website at http://christianguitars.co.uk

[murkat]

A. Binding ends, nibs can be retained ($ labor intensive). a plek job may be in order, depends on many factors.

B. Nut should be removed for a clean refret anyway.

1. Bone nuts are great for open chords, anything fretted after is moot.

2. synthetic type nuts are great for string/ tuning, if nut is cut correctly.

3.If you like the guitar, bonded with it, it's a keeper, then have it done the way you want it.

It would be an almost new guitar with a top shelf refret to your discretion.

[atomicwash]

Jay/Murkat refretted a '79 Sunburst for me last fall. Today it plays like new!

Thanks again, Jay!!

[mirrorimij]

HFC's own Newman60 has been known to fret/refret a Hamer or two.

If you are willing to ship it PM him.

[hamerhead]

Jay has done several of mine, including my Sustain Block Special FM that I stupidly ordered with jumbos (instead of medium jumbos - d'oh!). His refret looks like it came from the factory. Perfectly done. He also did my #1 LP, which I'm absurdly particular about. It basically needed to have the fretboard re-radiused after years of wrenching on it. Again perfectly done. It hasn't played that good in 25 years.

As for the binding nibs - how attached to them are you? Are you playing it or looking at it? Not trying to be smug (ha!) but while the nibs may look great, the practical side is having that little extra length of fret on the edges. It comes in handy for certain things. Or when bending really hard. Just sayin'.