Official Luthiers Forum!

Owned and operated by Lance Kragenbrink
It is currently Fri Mar 29, 2024 4:31 pm


All times are UTC - 5 hours





Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 9 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 8:25 am 
Offline
Koa
Koa

Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2016 8:54 am
Posts: 854
State: Texas
Country: United States
Focus: Repair
So I have a very cool old Gibson electric on my bench in need of a refret. It's basically a fretless wonder at this point and cannot be leveled/crowned further.

It looks like someone at some point decided to botch around getting a refret done (not this owner) by filing/sanding/planing? the fretboard down around the frets in order to create some clearance. It's only like this on the first 5 frets as it looks like he chickened out on doing it on the whole fretboard.

Image

Curious if anyone had seen this before? This is a first for me, planing the fingerboard down flush is a bad idea as that wouldn't leave much of the board and that'd be a ton of wood to remove on the entire rest of the fingerboard.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 9:06 am 
Offline
Contributing Member
Contributing Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2008 11:36 am
Posts: 7242
Location: Southeast US
City: Lenoir City
State: TN
Zip/Postal Code: 37772
Country: US
Focus: Repair
Whoever did that to the fretboard caused significant damage. As I see it you only have a few options:
1. Level the board then refret - obvious disadvantages as you've stated.
2. Add wood in the damaged areas. - of course that leaves the problems of matching the rest of the fretboard and also you would have to do something with the binding.
3. Build a new fretboard.

I think 1 or 3 are the only reasonable options. Good luck with this one.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 9:20 am 
Offline
Koa
Koa
User avatar

Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:13 pm
Posts: 832
Location: Durango CO
First name: Dave
Last Name: Farmer
City: Durango
State: CO
Theoretically, the board should need no more leveling than if it was un-scalloped. It might not look like a nice clean re-fret but as soon as there are big enough lands for the wire, you could put in the new wire.

The tricky part is the surface at the scalloped end would be lowered much more quickly than the solid end during leveling if your not careful.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 3:30 pm 
Offline
Koa
Koa

Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2016 8:54 am
Posts: 854
State: Texas
Country: United States
Focus: Repair
So the owner decided he didn't want to replace the fretboard. And I explained to him the issues with leveling the whole thing, so he opted not to do that either!

So after taking some measurements I made the decision to refret with 6140 fretwire, which matched the old wire VERY closely except I have no way to know what the original fret height was. Regarding the scallops I decided to lower them just slightly to clear space for the new fretwire.

I couldn't bear the thought of ripping up the old binding to make the frets flush with a 35' file, so I decided to try to keep the look as original as possible. Difficult as there was a TON of damage that the old "repair" (I hesitate to use that word even) guy did, nicks and marks and old stains just all over the place on both the binding as well as the fretboard.

In light of this, I decided that this guitar will play well no matter what. First order of business was to build a fret filing jig. I didn't want the fret ends to go over the binding (the nibs were almost gone so I decided to try to save what was left of them) I had a spare blank maple fretboard from a past repair that ended up not happening. So I glued it to a strip of scrap spruce to create clearance from my bench top.

Image

The fretboard was to file the frets on separate from the guitar to get the frets flush against the binding, thereby not compromising the remaining binding, once I get them filed to the length I need, I can simply install them. During the leveling process I beveled the edges to smooth them out.

I didn't take photos of the leveling process, you guys all know how that goes. Here is the fretboard after installation and cleanup, I hadn't polished up to 8K micromesh at this point but it was looking MUCH better with the new frets. You can see where the previous person stopped with his destructive rampage against the fretboard in this pic.

Image

Guitar plays well now, was alot of work but it was worth it. Not the prettiest fretboard I've ever done, but at least the worst of it wasn't my fault haha!


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 7:32 pm 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Fri Aug 19, 2005 4:02 am
Posts: 3227
Location: The Woodlands, Texas
First name: Barry
Last Name: Daniels
Should have removed the nibs and extended the frets over the binding. That gives more fretting surface.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 8:41 pm 
Offline
Koa
Koa

Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2016 8:54 am
Posts: 854
State: Texas
Country: United States
Focus: Repair
Barry Daniels wrote:
Should have removed the nibs and extended the frets over the binding. That gives more fretting surface.


Nope, not on this one. Owner was very concerned with keeping it original as possible and I had no desire to screw it up.further by chopping off even more of the already damaged binding.

In this case your suggestion is not what wouldve been best for this guitar.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 11:26 pm 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Fri Aug 19, 2005 4:02 am
Posts: 3227
Location: The Woodlands, Texas
First name: Barry
Last Name: Daniels
If the nibs were the full height of the frets, I would tend to agree that they should be saved. But those nibs appear to be worn or worked down severely to where they no longer serve as a bevel to the fret end. That required you to file an additional bevel on the end of the fret which further decreased the effective fret width.

But I understand the collector's mentality, which often is not based on logic. During my 40 years of repairing and building guitars I have had to turn a number of clients away when they had unrealistic expectations.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 12:40 pm 
Offline
Cocobolo
Cocobolo

Joined: Sun Aug 25, 2013 9:34 am
Posts: 356
Location: Massachusetts
First name: Rob
Last Name: Lak
State: Massachusetts
Country: USA
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
still a newbie... I had to look up "Nibs" cause I wasn't sure what you were saying... Please correct me if I am wrong but nibs are extensions on the binding that cover the fret ends (for whatever purpose? aesthetics only?) but in this case I am wondering if there really were nibs, or if what you see is just what's left of the binding when someone callously scalloped the fret board?


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 1:24 pm 
Offline
Contributing Member
Contributing Member

Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2012 11:12 am
Posts: 1170
First name: Rodger
Last Name: Knox
City: Baltimore
State: MD
Zip/Postal Code: 21234
Country: USA
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
My guess is that the original work was done to level out the divots in the fretboard, not that it makes any difference why it was done.

_________________
A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 9 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
phpBB customization services by 2by2host.com