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What do y'all consider a good epoxy for glueing the fretboard onto the neck?

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

I don't like epoxy or CA glues for fingerboard attachment.
I'm a repair guy so I like easy to fix methods like hide glue or Titebond.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I did a couple then I had to take one off so I don't epoxy fret boards anymore.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I've been using System Three, General Purpose Resin and their medium hardener.

Many epoxies are too thick to flow and squeeze out uniformly to a thin glue line especially on larger flat surfaces like fingerboards and headplates where I use it.

The GP from System 3 is thinner and works well for the purpose.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

I've used Pacer 15-minute epoxies, they're readily available in small amounts. West Systems stuff is the gold standard, and you pay accordingly. No hardware-store stuff.

Dry runs are needed to get familiar with all the motions and clamping and cleanup needs. NEATNESS COUNTS! And a big empty work surface covered by a disposable barrier, like butcher paper. And disposable gloves, mixing beakers (one-ounce graduated pill cups), stirring sticks, application brushes, and aprons. And cleanup stuff, like lots of precut disposable rags and denatured alcohol. And plenty of time. And the fingerboard has to be pinned into place, it can't even threaten to move. Mask off anyplace you don't want epoxy.

After all that, it's plain sailing.

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Peter Havriluk

So when the OLF many years ago had a highly respected builder tell us they used epoxy for the fretboard I tried it as well. Must have done maybe ten that way and I used West Systems and System III. I preferred West only because it's a Michigan product and so am I

Then along comes my friend who is a master woodworker who even had his own woodworking TV show on the West Coast. He was here learning to build guitars and was a quick study.

My friend made the argument that epoxy is a bit like paint in so much as it never really, really fully cures and as such is a poor transmitter of vibration of all frequencies.

He went on to make the case that for HHG if you can't have clamps in place in the short open time there is no value that counters the risk of HHG's pitfalls meaning short open time. But he thought that Titebond Original was a good choice for fretboards.

I thought he made a great argument and I returned to using Titebond Original and I have to tell you it's much easier to use too than epoxy with clean-up being potentially a mess with epoxy.

The problem that epoxy was originally suggested to cure, pardon the pun was that water based glue when gluing on a fretboard can induce a bow of sorts in the neck. I had already been countering this by how I glued things with pressure in one direction from a stick going from the floor to the headstock with the neck clamped to a bench. The method works well, it's not mine, I read it somewhere. It also used to be described in the instructions for the Stew Mac Dread kit.

Anyway long story short the guys here citing the serviceability differences between epoxy and Titebond Original are spot on too. Much easier to get Titebond Original to release than epoxy when the mess comes alive again.

But if you must use epoxy Dave I vote for West Systems

I haven't used epoxy for fretboards, but here's an application tip for large surfaces in general: Cut a slice off of a swimming pool noodle and use it as a disposable paint roller. Dirt cheap and highly effective. I 3D printed my holder, but it would be easy to make out of wood or whatever.

I also tried epoxy years ago prompted as well by the famous builder on the forum. Then one day a defective truss rod broke and I had to take the fretboard off. Like prior posters said it was a huge mess.

I went back to tightbond extend. I clamp them straight from 48 hrs. Still a trace back bow sometimes but easy to deal with when leveling the fretboard.

When I did use epoxy I used Smith’s All Wood.

I have been gluing head blocks with Smiths. Figured you’d never want to remove one and there are bound to be little irregularities gluing two radiused surfaces so gap filling properties seem good.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I utilize epoxy, titebond introduces water into the neck and fretboard which is a hard no for me. I use West Systems and recently started using the Stew Mac as its easy and comes in small quantities

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Look at it this way - you know how those of us who work on our own cars hate engineers because they don't care about how hard it is to repair? You use epoxy and I work on your guitar later, I will curse you and your children.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Makes me wonder how much glue people are using, and how they’re being clamped.

I use just a thin thin layer of TB OG. I’ll run 4 1/16” beads down the board and then spread it out. Final layer is just sticky enough to leave a fingerprint. Clamp it against a flat caul and usually I will leave it overnight, but if I need to, I am comfortable unclamping at 45 minutes and moving on to neck carving. Have had no issues with backbow.

TB1, an aluminum caul and 8hrs - flawless every time. This is a shot from when I used to pre-fret my boards, hence the small clamp near the nut area. Remember to neutral the TR immediately after the glue up.

PS Index pins are your friend!

Tschüß, M

Wanted to add for those adverse to adding water into the joint back when all guitars were made mostly of HHG, Gibson, Martin, Washburn etc. they used HHG and HHG added water into the joint. As such some of the most valuable acoustic guitars ever made had a water based glue holding the fretboard on.....

Terry brings up a great related point. Those still fretting the board off the neck will have back bow in your fretted board and that is just as likely if not more so to result in a bowed neck when the neck is glued to the fretted board. You also don't have the ability to relevel the board after the board and neck are joined since the frets are now in the way and you have to live with whatever neck/board shape results.

With this said gluing a fretted board to a neck is a different process in my mind than gluing an unfretted board to a neck. Folks indicating their preference here should indicate if their boards are fretted or not prior to gluing because it's an important detail that skews things in its absence.

This is also a very good time to once again argue that learning to fret the board on the neck, neck on the guitar is a practice that provides the maker more options and results in a more serviceable instrument since you can control the fret plane shape.

With the advent of the two way truss rod, I secretly like backbow. Well, I used to secretly like it, now I just like it.

I agree with the anti-epoxy (for this job, anyway) crowd. I understand the argument for using epoxy to be: I’ll never have to take the fingerboard off the neck, and I want to avoid using glue with water in it, because water warps wood. Well, I disagree with the idea that you will never have to remove the fingerboard. Never is a long time, and you just don’t know what might need to be done someday. As for water in the glue, that is pretty easily managed, if you know what you are doing. Don’t count the fingerboard as finally profiled until after this gluing operation. Keep it clamped flat and straight until the glue completely dries. Then do the final profiling after all gluing is over with (if you do more gluing later, when attaching the neck to the body).

Using hot hide glue is perfectly fine for this task, but like all gluing operations with hot hide glue, you need to plan ahead so you can get it clamped up in time before the glue gels. I use hot hide glue for this, and it works great. But I use hot hide glue for every wood joint on an instrument, so I have worked out my processes.

The principal reason cited to epoxy fretboards appears to be to avoid moisture-induced movement of the neck and warpage in terms of bow or twist. We used a strongback neck-to-fretboard glue-up using HHG and avoided any movement issues provided the neck stayed on the strong-back for 48 hours minimum. I suspect that at least some of the reports of warpage I recall seeing here and on other sites appeared to trace back to failure to use a stable surface for glue-up, or removal from that stable surface well before the excess moisture had had time to move out of the timber and EMC. The worst examples of this failure to stabilize the joint during glue-up I recall were use of clamps like the StewMac fingerboard clamp, which virtually guaranteed a change in joint geometry as a result of water-based glue-up.

We used epoxy for pore filling and for a limited number of repair jobs such repair of delaminated plywood tops or on some very low-end guitars like Ovations with cedar tops where the choice was top replacement or leveraging the saturation characteristics of the adhesive to hold things together under the bridge.
Accurately measured, well-mixed structural epoxies that feature longer cure times will cure to very close to 100%. Five, ten, and 30 minute epoxies that mix 1:1 have bulking agents or fillers that complicate getting a complete, hard cure, and may have issues under finishes due to incompletely cured epoxy components reacting with the water vapor and salts from perspiration. This is what we saw with Z-Poxy finishing resin which prompted the switch to System Three Silvertip (a non-amine blushing formulation). Short cure time (5, 10, 15, 30 minute) epoxies are the bad actors of the epoxy world with regard to soft cures, yellowing, and spotty blushing under finishes.

For the OP's fretboard/neck joint, use of a slow or medium speed cure structural epoxy like West 105/20x or MAS LV marine non-blushing using the slow hardener will provided hard cure and a reasonably achievable wet glass transition temperature if there is cause to remove in the future. The downside to using epoxy is that removal is a 'one bite of the apple' sort of job - if the board does not get removed in the first try, it is likely that structural marine or aero epoxies have post-cured, which required higher temperature on the next try. For repair people, this is nightmare fuel, and is one of the reasons why I suspect Mr. Breakstone and Mr. Pile are counseling caution with regard to epoxy use for the joint. As a general rule, blushing gets progressively worse at higher relative humidity, with even non-blushing formulations usually cautioning use at high RH (>95%).

If using quick-cure or structural epoxies which are not specifically marketed as non-blushing formulations under any finish (which would include the fretboard/neck joint), allow full cure time and clean the surface with detergent (Dawn dish detergent is excellent) and water, followed by mechanic cleaning (scrape/sand). Again, for pore filling, Silvertip or similar used at 40-50% RH is hard to beat, while for structural use, West 105/20x or Mas LV should be blush-free within thr temp and RH conditions noted in their respective applications guides.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I typically, prep the fretboard, prep the neck, set the trussrod, glue on FB with epoxy. Then sand the fretboard to specs. I cut my fret slots at.090 so I have some wiggle room. I also leave clamped over night

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What are you using for frets?

Ed the slots .023 width and .090 depth.

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Ah, .090 depth, that tracks…

For some reason I thought there were more people using epoxy.
Thanks for the replies. Looks like I should stick with TB original.
For repair people who might end up working on my stuff.




And for Chris Pile’s safety.
I have one child, do it right the first time you don’t have to go back and repeat yourself,
She was a deputy sherif and is now married to a Southern Baptist minister.
Ya go cursing her and I don’t think it’ll turn out good for ya.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

I’ve tried hard to stay out of this discussion, but I have to contribute this. Many ebony fretboards shrink and swell across their width with humidity changes more than the neck wood that they are glued to. That leads to a discernible edge as the weather changes where the fingerboard joins the neck. Titebond Original (and many epoxies) is(are) flexible enough that it allows this edge to appear. HHG is not. I have been using HHG for this joint for a long time. You get your clamps and cauls ready and heat the fingerboard and neck with a heat gun. When the parts are warm, there’s plenty of time to set the clamps. If you must use Titebond, use Titebond Extend. It dries quite a bit harder and doesn’t allow nearly as much creep as the Original.

I never use Titebond Original on a joint when there is a possibility that creep on that joint will be noticeable or cause problems. I had the good fortune to see guitars that I made years before, find problems with them, and figure them out. I make better ones now than I did 25 years ago.

I have used epoxy to glue fretboards and occasionally headplates. I use West epoxy.

The only reason I am posting is to address the issue of removal. I find epoxy the easiest to remove of any of the glues we use. Warm the fretboard or other part and the epoxy melts. I had some problems with shifting during clamping when I started out, so I learned about removing epoxied fretboards.

Exceptions to the low melting point include special high-heat epoxies, and moderately-heat resistant epoxies. The only one of those I know of is JB Weld. Heat also loosens Titebond I and protein glues, but it takes longer.

Epoxy will adhere to its own residue, and there shouldn't be a lot of it left if the original joint was properly clamped. Titebond and similar glues must be completely scraped off to get a good bond, which is a hassle IMO.

That all said, the most reversible/repairable glues are hide glue and fish glue, and as I learn more I use them more. I'll probably shift to a strongback and fish glue for fretboards, but it's tempting to continue use epoxy because it's so easy and doesn't introduce moisture into the joint.

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

Since I found the System 3 Gen Purpose resin to be the right viscosity for large gluing surfaces I have been using it for head plates and back straps and wouldn't change that process for anything.

I'm sure it was Rick T who convinced me to use it for fingerboards too. I originally thought it crazy as for most joints in instrument I would never consider it. Then there were lots of folks that said epoxy releases with heat pretty well too.

Since I already use it for pore filling, I thought why not.

I have separated some Titebond joints with heat but it wasn't pretty and there was cleanup.

We've all heard Titebond doesn't stick to itself so that was part of the reason I switched to epoxy which I gathered would stick to itself in a repair situation.

All glues have their strengths/weaknesses. I've seen epoxy break right along the glue line like glass leaving a thin layer of glue on both surfaces. Too brittle?? Hide can do that too and in disassembly it's a good feature.

After all the input here I'm going to set up some tests with TB and the epoxy I use and compare disassembly of both. How cleanly they separate, how much cleanup, how much heat....

I took a look at Titebond and System 3 specs and here's what I found - Titebond at room temperature has a bond strength of 3600 psi and a wood failure rate of 77%, at 150 deg F overnight the bond drops to 1600 psi and a wood failure of 10%. System 3 lists a maximum service temp or 160 deg F. So on paper they start failing pretty close to each other. And as Tim pointed out, TB may take longer heat exposure to fail. Looks well worth a test.

EDIT - Test under way - ebony to hog, System 3 GP epoxy w/med hardener, Titebond Original, same wood, fresh surfaces, clamped overnight. Will let them cure for a week.










If I learn anything in tests, I'll add another comment.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED