Fret Repair - A Bound Fingerboard
Section Through Bound Fingerboard
For fingerboards that have a plastic, wood, abalone mother of
pearl
binding or any of these in combination, the procedure is a bit more
tedious. You need to cut out the tang to overhang the binding. Refer to
the Neck/Binding Diagram Above.
You can easily remove this portion of the tang with the
modified End
Nippers Fret Repair Tool. If you don't get quite enough of
the tang from the
underside
of the crown, you can carefully file the remainder. Be careful not to
file into the crown or you will have to start over. Also, the tang
length should be slightly shorter than the available channel by about
1/16" or a bit more.
Place the fret into the groove with the tang resting against
the
binding side of the groove and gently tap this end of the fret down
into the channel. Work the fret into the slot tapping as you go.
Make sure you have no gaps between the crown and fingerboard.
If you
do, pound with more conviction and make sure you have the neck support
fixture directly beneath the fret you are working on. The support jig
will absorb most of the shock of the hammer and leave the neck
undamaged.
When completely seated, take the End Nippers and cut the end
of the
fret overhanging the binding flush with the finding.
Fret Repair: Bound Fingerboard With Nubs:
You will know if you have an instrument with binding nubs by looking at
the ends of the frets and the fretboard binding "bumps" up from the
fretboard and follows the contour of the the fret.
When you do an entire fret job, you will loose these nubs during the
fretboard sanding process. This will not be a problem as you can
overhang the binding similar the the "bound fingerboard diagram" above.
Fret Repair: Finished Maple Fretboards
Another condition you may come across is a maple fretboard that is
finished with lacquer, as is typical on many Fender guitars.
These guitars are fretted and they sprayed with lacquer, which covers
the fretboard as well as the frets. These guitars take a bit of special
attention in the fret removal and re-installation process.
Before you remove the frets you should carefully cut along each side of
each fret, cutting through the finish, down to the fingerboard. Then
remove the frets as usual. Give the fretboard a light sanding to remove
the inconsistencies and allow the final finish to adhere.
Follow the steps to the rest of this article. Then , one final step is
to take a spray gun and spray a couple of coats of nitrocellulose
lacquer
over the fretboard and frets.
Search For High Frets:
Sight down the fretboard and look for any extremely high frets. If you
find one or more you will have to work on these separately with a Fret
File. Check your work often as you file with the Fret Rocker. See our plans on how to make a Fret Rocker Fret Repair Tool.
Level The Frets With a Mill File:
For this step in our Fret Repair take the 12" Mill Bastard File and place on the fingerboard and
make long
straight cuts on the fret surface. Make sure to apply even pressure on
the file. Go very slowly first to make sure you don't slam into a high
fret. If you beveled the fret leveling mill file you should minimize
this problem.
Continue to work the ENTIRE fretboard frets down in very
small
increments, checking your work after every few strokes. Since the frets
are very soft, you will take off material very quickly so don't push
down too hard.
When all frets are at least touched along their entire length
you are
almost finished with the leveling process. The easy way to tell
this is to inspect every fret and each of them should show a shiny area
on the top from the filing process. Try to keep this milling process to
a minimum as you don't want to lower your frets any more than you have
to.
Some frets could be cut down quite a bit. Now look at the
frets that
were worn the worst. If you still see slight indentations on these
frets, continue with your leveling, just a few strokes at a time until
all traces of the indentations are no longer visible.
Clean away all the fret shavings and make absolutely sure
there are
none beneath the body of the instrument as these can really mess up a
great finish.
Now we have to round all the tops of the frets to get the
crown back.
If you skip this step - as I have seen in many botched repair jobs, you
will not get clear tones off a flat-topped fret.
Using the Fret File
Fret Files are a very specialized tool and you cannot substitute any
other tool for the job a fret file does. You can purchase one At Our Store.
File across the full length of the fret and again inspect often as you
go. You should file the frets until there is just a very little sliver
of flatness left - then just make a few more strokes to complete the
process. Make sure the fret is evenly crowned for it's entire length.
Do this with all the frets.
Fret Repair - Check With The Fret Rocker:
Now check all the frets with your Fret Rocker Fret Repair
Tool. Click HERE to see
how to make one of these. This tool should space 3 frets and you rock
the tool constantly at each new location. If you find a high fret,
knock it down and check it often with the fret rocker.
After you have checked all the frets it is time for the fret
finishing
process.
Fret End Dressing:
Now take an 8"
mill file with fine teeth and gently run it
along the
sides of the fingerboard, carefully cutting down the nipped ends of the
frets. These ends should be files even with the fingerboard for unbound
fingerboards and just the fret overhand needs filing on bound
fingerboards.
You do have to be very careful that you don't file the
finish from the edge of the fingerboard. Some of the finish is
unavoidable, but with care, you can still save the finish.
Fret Repair Detail File To Deburr Fret Ends
Your frets are looking pretty good by now. But we have to smoothen and
polish the frets now.
Take some grit #220
wet/dry sandpaper. Check here for sources
it is
also know as silicone carbide sandpaper. Rip a 1/4 sheet of it and fold
it in half. Sand each fret on all sides of the crown. To get the bottom
of the crown, where it meets the fretboard, try to dig your fingernail
into the sandpaper and guide it along the fret.
When all traces of
scratches are gone and the fret takes on a dull, even shine move on to
the next fret. If you like you can sand the wood of the fingerboard as
well to clean it up.
Now sand the length of the fingerboard, including over all
the frets.
This will tear up quite a bit of sandpaper, but it really buffs the
fingerboard and frets.
Once you have finished all sanding with #600 grit wet/dry
silicone
carbide sandpaper and do the same sanding operations as for the #220
paper.
Next buff the frets with #0000 steel wool. Now you will see
the frets
get more shine and they will become very smooth. The wood of the
fingerboard will buff up nicely too.
Clean Up the Nut:
Clean up the nut with very sharp chisels and sandpaper to
clean all
glue and imperfections. Try not to take too much material off the nut
as this will affect the fitting of the nut to the channel. Apply a
couple of drops of Titebond glue to the edge of the nut that abuts the
fingerboard and press into place. Hold the nut in place with a couple
of strips of masking tape. When dry...
That's it for this Fret Repair. Place some fingerboard
conditioner on the wood, string up
your guitar
and enjoy.
Specialized Tools Available:
Fret Compression Tool:
Radiused Sanding Blocks:
Fret Wire:
Fret Bending Pliers:
Fret Tang Size Reducer:
Fret Tang Masher:
Fret Tang Nipper:
Fret end Dressing File:
The above links take you to Stewart MacDonald Website, which
deals in all sorts of specialized repair tools.
Use the drop-down menu below to go to the first part of this article or any other article on fret repair. Simply select the article you want and press the GO button.
