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I am refretting a guitar with a poorly made fingerboard. It looks so amateurish, full of mistakes. One of the worst mistake is that some of the frets slots were made very large, especially in the region over the body. Probably with the idea of making it easier to press frets in the higher portion of the fingerboard. Instead it is impossible to seat the frets correctly. They just don't want to stay put.
But the biggest problem is in fret number 11. It is not spaced equally from treble to bass. I was thinking that a good idea would be to make the slot all over again. Is it much trouble?

Sounds like it may possibly be easier to make a new, proper fretboard rather than fighting the old one?

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I have had good luck planing the old board down just until the slots were gone. Then gluing on a new top portion of the fingerboard.
This allows blending old and new Ebony. keeping you out of the finish and color where the board meets the neck wood. Making the top portion barely oversize and pinning it while gluing makes flushing the portion over the body less tricky. This is still an extensive repair.
Because its really a problem with one slot, I would only do this if there were other issues, neck angle etc. I think filling the offending slot with wood and re-cutting it oversize slightly and Epoxying in the one fret I think would be a lot easier.

If the slots are slightly oversize to where it won't stay put, you will need to glue and clamp it in.

If it's ebony and you need to recut a slot because it has been incorrectly cut, you might be able to cut an extra large kerf (or use a router to route a 1/16" slot), fill it in with ebony, and recut.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

"But the biggest problem is in fret number 11. It is not spaced equally from treble to bass. I was thinking that a good idea would be to make the slot all over again. Is it much trouble?"


If it is not too far out of whack, you could fill it and recut the slot as it should be, hiding the mistake under the fret. If that won't work then you could rout part way though the fretboard (half the thickness) from the 10th fret to the 12th fret, glue in a new piece of wood, and recut the 11th fret where it should be. I would pick whatever method I thought would be less obvious.

Thank you all for the reply. I am still considering the best way to go. David, when you made a new fingerboard, you said you left it a bit oversize. Did you have problems to adapt it to the pre existing neck? How did you proceed? with a plane?

I made a thin fingerboard w/ slots cut with a template on a table saw. Just as for a new instrument. Then positioned it w/ locating pins on top of the planed remaining, now slotless, old board. traced around it and left it just barely oversize. The pins allowed me to try the fit, remove it and take a swipe w/ a plane a number of times. until it was very close. so there was only sanding to clean up the glue line and flush old to new.
It must absolutely not shift during glue up. The old board was nice black Ebony so the new ,"topper" was easy to match. a little French polish on the seam and it was invisible.
It spared me from difficult finish issues if I had tried to blend a new board with a colored neck and top.
This also was a chance to correct low neck angle by making the top half tapered.

It was a big job for an instrument that was worth it but it came out well. As I mentioned, I would not do this for just a bad slot or two. but it dose give you the chance to fix a couple of things at once.

If it's really just the eleventh and you can match the wood well, Clay S. has a great solution. Putting a fingerboard topper just where it's needed and breaking it at the Tenth and twelfth slots.
A small router would quickly make a perfect flat between 10 and 12. If you cut your replacement piece to perfect length, you could put feeler gauges, the same size as the other slots, in at the ends to hold it in position while gluing. you could even pre cut the eleventh partway down before gluing.
I think an Epoxy re-fret would be the best solution if you don't replace the whole board.
wax the board, tape either side of the slot, epoxy in the slot, remove the tape, press in the fret and hold it down until the glue sets, scrape the squeeze out before it's fully cured.
Did I answer what you were asking?

So I want to understand, why replace just the top of a fingerboard, why not the whole fingerboard? It sounds like a good opportunity to see if anything else such as truss rods (if any) needs to be addressed, or perhaps slight adjustment to the neck angle (neck wedge).

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

My understanding is that there are two different ways to proceed. One is detach the old fingerboard and make a new one. But once a professional luthier (very very good luthier) told me that he found this too risky, especially because the guitar was a Ramirez, painted with acrilic. You risk damage the finish and get a bad neck-fingerbaord connection line. The other way is just plane the old fingerboard to where you want, and then make a new, slotted one. I think just experience can give you advice.

However I feel the amount of work needed to plane a fingerboard halfway suggests that the risks are about the same, might as well just remove the old board and put a new one on, no issue about trying to match wood tone if the guitar had no fingerboard binding. As for heat causing finish damage (I am aware that removing fingerboards takes a lot of heat, especially if hide glue was used), if you're going to plane a fingerboard halfway you might as well just plane the whole thing off and start anew.

Custom painting/engraving sure does make repair work a lot harder for sure, and in those case I want to get the job done with the least invasive way possible. That Stella with the silkscreened rosette is one example...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

but keep in mind that there is the headplate veneer that won't let you go down to the neck with a handplane. Unless you want to remove that too

Remove the rest of the way with router or just chisels...

Or otherwise by the time you got the thickness down enough where the headplate becomes a problem, you can just heat it off. By then the amount of heat/time required will be minimal.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I do take back my original rush to simply replace the fretboard in light of the possible refinishing difficulties. If the guitar has a modern finish on it, this could be an issue. For my French polished guitars, which establish the context for my biased outlook, redoing the finish around this joint would be a 1/2 hour job at most, and simple. Not so if you are busting up a polyester or urethane finish.

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I agree. Could we say that an important parameter is how the guitar is finished? Anyway, I had this professional luthier who made a new fingerboard to a Ramirez Centenario. He did not remove the old fretboard. Just planed it to whatever he decided and glued a new fingerboard on top of it. Ok, this guy to me is more a magician than a luthier, but the job came out perfect. It was impossible to spot a sign where the fingerboard was glued. The finish was magically blended to the old finish with no visible sign. And yet the Ramirez was finished with acrylic I think. I still do not know how he did it.

If you remove the entire fgbd it is time consuming and difficult to flush the new one with the neck wood without getting into the color.
If you leave the joint between the old fgbd and neck wood untouched, you just need to flush old and new ebony and the make the shine match.
As with so many repairs, the key to speed is avoiding difficult re-finishing tasks.
Often the woodwork is the easy part.