Congratulations Ray! Wearing your frets down is a real good thing because that means that you are playing a bunch. Well done! To add a bit more to the conversation from above. Yes, as Dave said, capos can accelerate fret wear. Dave also mentioned pressure… the harder you play, the more the frets wear, but, I come back to this… fret wear is a good thing. Keep playing!
Obi Clark Kenobi is (of course) correct. When I was playing a ton of grass, I used to dress and level as often as a couple times a year. I started doing this myself, and if it was done before the wear got too bad, it was very quick and easy. Leveling and dressing does take ALL your frets down to the plane of the lowest spots. So in essence, you are moving fret height to the most worn spots. Once the lowest frets were down about to about a half or two-thirds of original height (4 or 5 years), it was time for some new frets. However, over the last few years, I have come to a different personal approach and Archie hit on it as well. Once I get some noticeable wear, I have the bottom frets (I generally do about 11) replaced with stainless. Stainless frets wear so slow that I think of them as a permanent fix. Stainless is very tough to work with, so when you do dress, it is more work. Also some people think the tone is too pingy. All that said, I am happy with stainless, and have moved the 3 instruments I most often play over to stainless.
