Hi, I read a lot of interesting threads on this forum, but now at last my own first post!

I recently bought a secondhand 5-string headed Empathy. It is 13 years old, has some dings an dongs, but what a wonderful bass this is! It has medium fretwear and may need refretting in the near future.

Therefor my question: Who has experience with fretjobs, either done by a luthier or by Status? Is it possible to have the refretting performed by a luthier who ofcourse has experience with wooden fretboards only.
What will be the costs for a Status?

Bye,
Peter

I recently had a Precision refretted by a luthier with Stainless Steel frets, and it cost me £135. If you have a graphite neck without a truss rod I would get Status to look at it, as it will be a precise job.

I dont see why a normal luthier couldnt do a refret on a graphite neck providing that it has a truss rod though.

Why does the truss rod make the difference? The Empathy doesn't have one.

In order to do the refret most luthiers will slacken the truss rod to make it easier to remove and insert the frets, but more importantly, its to make sure there is no buzz afterwards - if there is no way of setting neck relief after a refret the fretjob will have to be perfect, or you'll get fretbuzz. Especially if you go for a very low action, as I suspect most Status owners will B)

If I were you I'd ask a local luthier - they might be more than happy to do it, but the impression I got from my luthier (I was concerned my truss rod wasn't working correctly and asked him to check it before he did my refret) was that he wouldn't undertake a refret without a way of setting neck relief.

After a verry bad experience with a fret-job done by a German Guitar builder in Aachen (who claimed to have experience with Statii) on my Energy a few years ago, I decided to send back every other Status I have owned (and presently own to Rob :(

Because of his unique knowledge of working with Graphite en Phenol (the material most Status fretboards are made of), I think he is one of the few people in the business who can handle with your problem B)

Costs are about 300,- euros including shipping, but Its' worth it every Penny :o

How quickly did you manage to get Rob to do yours Groovemaster? I may need to have my Series 1 refretted with Stainless Steel frets as I'm allergic to Nickel...

I got Rob to put a new fingerboard on my S2000 (from a very worn fretted to plain fretless). I know thats not what you want done, but it cost me £300 or so and took a few months (due to their holidays and that I forgot they had it for a month or so). I'd imagine a re-fret would take much less time, might as well get the fingerboard re-finished while you're at it.

Thanks mate.

Refretting the Energy took him about six weeks.

Like Steve said, It really depends on how buzzy he is (vacation, Namm, Frankfurter Messe etc.)