frets off - finish before new frets or after?

[Brendan]

I've got the frets off my MIJ strat neck and the fretboard has been leveled with a radius block. I'm staining the maple fretboard tonight. I'm tempted to spray the clearcoat before putting the new frets in. Any good reason why I should put the frets on first?

[Jim Collins]

Not too long ago, I owned a NOS Nocaster, which was a very good guitar, but in my advancing years, I became more accustomed to somewhat larger frets. (Ironically, I grew up playind a mid-50s Fender Duo-Sonic that had tiny frets.) I had that guitar refretted with Dunlop 6150 frets.

On that guitar, the original frets were applied before the finish. The fact that the finish was applied after the frets meant that the frets seemed even smaller. When the guitar was refretted, the finish was removed from the fretboard (just the fretboard), and a thin coat of nitro lacquer was applied before the new frets were installed.

The difference was rather remarkable. Certainly, the guitar felt more playable -- to me, of course -- but that was not the most significant difference. The guitar sounded quite a bit livelier and brighter after the refret. Prior to the refret, the stock pickups sounded too dark, for me, so I replaced them with Barden pickups. After the refret, the Bardens were just too bright for that guitar. I re-installed the original pickups, and the guitar sounded perfect.

Now, some might say that it was the larger frets that made the sonic difference, not the fact that the finish was put on first. I might even tend to agree with that, except for the fact that I have had other, rosewood and ebony fretboard guitars refretted with the same frets (and the old frets were tiny), and I noticed no such change in tone.