Continuing the discussion from Show Us Your Basses (Part 2):
This might be a silly question, but please try to bear with me. I’m still new to all this 
This bass that I got recently has, like I said in the linked-to post, kind of a rough neck. One of the questions on my mind is whether this is a problem:
The end of the fret’s slot is exposed, whereas the other ones are closed.
Is it sticking out on the other side?
No. On the other side, the slot is closed like usual, and the fret is flush with the fretboard like I would expect.
The fret looks flush on the board to me, I’d play it. Could’ve been like that from day one. You can get that one replaced if you want or get a Luthier to look the whole bass looked over and come up with a plan. Play it enjoy..
The fret should be fine. You’re good to play.
Great, thanks!
Yeah you’re all good. What happens is that the wood, being wood, will slightly swell or shrink with changes to humidity. The metal frets, of course, do not. This is what can lead to that, or to fret sprout. No big deal and if you get fret sprout it’s also easy to fix yourself.
This is also why you need to set up your bass periodically, not just once. As the seasons change, so can the bass.
If you had the hands of a real man, your skin would just wear the frets down. 
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I can’t imagine what it would be like trying to wrangle that thing into a tram or bus to get to a gig. My brain just freezes up at the thought. Imagine what the case would look like!
Passenger: What’s in that case?
Me: My dead grandma. I take her everywhere!
[Full disclosure: I used that line for a hard golf club case at the rental car pickup in Honolulu once. They had already dropped the top, so I laid the passenger seat back flat and set my golf clubs on it. The Hawai’ian dudes asked me what was in the case, and that’s the answer I gave them. Man, did they back away from me fast! 
]
I have a slight fret sprout problem with my Danelectro longhorn. It is barely noticeable, but when the air humidity is 45% or lower, the frets hurt my pinky. The end of the frets is a little sharp.
I just thought of taking a photo and post it here, but, right now the humidityis 52% and rising. The wood has expanded so the frets are flush and are not sticking out at all. So I have nothing to show at the moment.
But after the summer, when they sprout again, how can I file them? The problem is, the neck is very dark and glossy (the pau ferro fretboard is dark and shiny, and the neck is black and glossy). Is it possible to protect the neck with tape or something and would I be able to file the frets successfully, without scratching the neck?
This was still a problem last week, but now for the moment it is not an issue (because of the humidity).
The next time I buy a bass, the neck will be roasted maple. The humidity here varies often enough, so I have to tune them everyday (not a problem), but it would be nice to have a bass whose neck wouldn’t change so easily with the humidity.
Want you want is a fret end dressing file. Something like this:
There are some YT videos on that link on how to use it. Is is rather straight forward and only takes a little filing…couple of passes really. Maybe find some equivalent on Thomann though they seem more pricey there. And yeah you can use painters tape to provide protection to the fretboard. With some care I really didn’t need it in my case though.
The humidity varies greatly here. It’s quite high in the summer and dry in the freezing winter. I ended up getting and using humidifier for the winter months!
Thanks! 
I’ll check out the videos.
The file looks small and easy to control. I guess it will be easier than I excepted. Thanks again!
Remember too; you’re removing metal, so it’s probably not a bad idea to mask/protect your pickups. Additionally, whatever you typically oil your fretboard with can be used on the file to get a better finish on the fret and help contain the ‘fines’ you will be producing. 
Thanks! Good point! Metal shavings could be attracted to the pickups. I hadn’t thought of that.
