I’m interested in your decision to install frets after finishing and it’ll be good to see how it turn out for you as I’m about to take the same route. I asked Matt Mustapick about this and he was good enough to provide the following information. Hope it helps. Best wishes, Pete

Addam Stark lives here in Santa Cruz and does my lacquering for me. He tapes of the edge of the fingerboard but if I fret first, overspray gets under the tape and has to cleaned up and it’s very difficult to get a beautiful, evenly sanded sheen across the fingerboard if you have to clean up with the frets in. There are some tips for fretting after the lacquers on. Addam masks the fingerboard but I still have to use a razorblade to clean up the buildup that accumulates at the edge of the tape. So I use a blade to clean up the front of the board, then I sand it clean with 220-320, and I also hit the corners of the fingerboard a little bit, to take away the lacquer near the corner. Then I continue this up to 1500 micromesh. This is important because when I fret, I tap down the overhang of each fret so that it kinks very slightly where the tang ends to accommodate the binding, so that there is no chance of loose fret ends.. If I had not taken the lacquer off the corner, then the lacquer on the side near the corner will chip from tapping down and kinking that fret end. After I fret, I use a flat file to mill the fret ends on an angle, as everyone does. I go a bit into the wood of the fingerboard when doing this, so that the wood edge of the fingerboard is bevelled, like you find on a Goodall guitar. Then before I sand the fret ends, I use masking tape on the side of the fingerboard going up to where that bevel starts and I sand with 220 up through the higher grits of micromesh. Then use masking tape to mask the board between the frets, then I level, recrown and re-polish the frets.