Fretboard repair

Jazzthat

Hi 
 I picked this guitar for pennies but the fretboard needs to be skimmed as it is in bad condition and it looks like someone filed down few frets making it unusable as it is and likely they need to be changed too.
Can someone here would do it for me at a reasonable price ?
If so what kind of money would I need to spend to sort this out ?

WezV

It would cost more than its worth..... but a good opportunity  to learn a new skill 

Jazzthat

WezV said:

It would cost more than its worth..... but a good opportunity  to learn a new skill 

I was thinking about that , but I haven't got a single tool to even get me started . 
The other option ( maybe cheaper ? ) is to rip the old fretboard out and install new one .

I can do fret leveling , crowning and polishing myself to lower the price if that could help ?

ICBM

It needs a complete refret anyway given the state of the fret ends, so you could plane the board down while you do it... but it looks like you might need to take off a substantial amount of depth. Replacing the board might be easier - especially if you can find a suitable donor which doesn't need fret work - but it's still a fairly big job and won't be cheap if you're paying someone to do it. The good news is that broken necks of the right sort of age aren't impossible to find, although most will have rosewood boards.

Jazzthat

ICBM said:

It needs a complete refret anyway given the state of the fret ends, so you could plane the board down while you do it... but it looks like you might need to take off a substantial amount of depth. Replacing the board might be easier - especially if you can find a suitable donor which doesn't need fret work - but it's still a fairly big job and won't be cheap if you're paying someone to do it. The good news is that broken necks of the right sort of age aren't impossible to find, although most will have rosewood boards.

I have already looked on eBay for such a neck but nothing out there at the moment . 
Let me know if you know of other places to look for it .
In the meantime I'll I'd like to find out how much would this cost ( replacing the fretboard with new frets ) , so I make my mind up as to what I need to do next  

Jazzthat

The reason for all that is , that the body is an ash and it looks really nice !

ICBM

Jazzthat said:

In the meantime I'll I'd like to find out how much would this cost ( replacing the fretboard with new frets ) , so I make my mind up as to what I need to do next

For a professional to do it I can't see it being any less than about £200.

For that you could easily buy a complete similar guitar and swap the necks.

Jazzthat

ICBM said:

Jazzthat said:

In the meantime I'll I'd like to find out how much would this cost ( replacing the fretboard with new frets ) , so I make my mind up as to what I need to do next

For a professional to do it I can't see it being any less than about £200.

For that you could easily buy a complete similar guitar and swap the necks.

Ouch

GSPBASSES

 It’s a right-handed guitar but set up for a left-handed player slightly confused.

Jazzthat

GSPBASSES said:

 It’s a right-handed guitar but set up for a left-handed player slightly confused.

Lol I was the same when I got it . Someone left handed must have been very eager to play right- handed guitar

phil_b

Jazzthat said:

GSPBASSES said:

 It’s a right-handed guitar but set up for a left-handed player slightly confused.

Lol I was the same when I got it . Someone left handed must have been very eager to play right- handed guitar

maybe it used to belong to Hendrix

Jazzthat

Alright . I am going to try to pull this off myself and learn something new
I am not sure if those gauges by broken nut can be filled up with something or not , but the plan is to just skimm the fingerboard so it looks nice and put new frets in .
Not sure how I go about finishing it . Any suggestions are much appreciated .

Not expensive but decent tools suggestions most welcomed too .

Sarge

Get yourself a set of radius sanding blocks, I got mine here, a full set came with adhesive sanding sheets.
Or find out the radius of the board and just buy 1.
Go for it, you've got nothing to lose  
https://guitarsandwoods.com/index.php?route=product/search&search=Sanding block&description=true

Jazzthat

Sarge said:

Get yourself a set of radius sanding blocks, I got mine here, a full set came with adhesive sanding sheets.
Or find out the radius of the board and just buy 1.
Go for it, you've got nothing to lose  
https://guitarsandwoods.com/index.php?route=product/search&search=Sanding block&description=true

Thanks mate . 
This forum so far has pushed me hard to DIY things , which is probably good .
But as this isn't your nails and pliers from local hardware store , these tools are very expensive .
Hopefully it'll pay off at the next project or so ...

Andyjr1515

Jazzthat said:

Alright . I am going to try to pull this off myself and learn something new
I am not sure if those gauges by broken nut can be filled up with something or not , but the plan is to just skimm the fingerboard so it looks nice and put new frets in .
Not sure how I go about finishing it . Any suggestions are much appreciated .

Not expensive but decent tools suggestions most welcomed too .

The trouble is, fitting frets and then getting everything right  - inserted, leveled, crowned, chamfered - is one of the few areas of guitar building where specialist tools do tend to be needed.

While it is clear that this neck has been heavily bodged, I'm not as convinced as @ICBM that the frets are completely shot to the point of needing replacing.  I DO agree that the best option would be to try to find another neck, but if this wasn't possible if it was me, I would:
- check that the truss rod works.  If it doesn't, then game over.
- check with a simple rocker (old credit card will do) over each triplet of frets whether they are basically level
- ignore the grooves near the nut, I would get a Stanley Knife blade and use it like a scraper, held with the thumb and finger of both hands between each pair of frets to remove the dirt, varnish, grooves, ripples and uneven binding edges and see how well it comes out.
- all being well with the above, I would then polish up the frets, add a bit of danish oil onto the fretboard, bolt it on, fit a nut and try it.

Jazzthat

Work in progress

So I bought few tools to get me going . So far I got fret puller , pliers to cut frets off , 90-35° diamond file and radius gauges .

After the initial inspection , the neck seemed all over the show with uneven radiuses all over and couple of last frets were almost flat and lower by some 1mm+ .
Knowing this I made a handy radius block from aluminium extrusion I had at my disposal . The size was good enough so I made 4 radiuses ( 7.25 , 9.5 , 10 and 12 ) on the same block .
Today I made my mind up which was the closest and off I went with 12"... 
Wish I had some sort of workshop and proper vice to keep everything steady . 
Well I skip that dreaming stage and got on with it holding the bench down with my leg and putting pressure against shed door .
It went quite well !
Took me about an hour , starting with 60 grit and finishing it 1000 ( mainly because scratches in black blocks ) . 
If I had that in vise or so it would have taken 20min and I wouldn't ended up sweating as much
Cuts near nut are still there but overall I am happy with it .



Now though , the not so good news ( for me ) .
Slots for frets aren't going to be deep enough to put new ones in . 
I went to search for a  cheaper fret slotting saw alternative , but there isn't great deal out there .
The closest one I found was 0.020" razor saw on Amazon . Would that be acceptable or to tight?

If you guys do know something that will work or maybe have one laying around for sale do let me know . Otherwise I need to buy a proper one  

The other problem is , after sanding some of  the black inlay blocks have slightly lifted up and some other got more damaged than they were before . 



I might consider to pull them all out and fit something in that place ...

WezV

Thats an impressive sanding block.   You may have found it easier with the block in the vice, rather than the neck.

Jazzthat

WezV said:

Thats an impressive sanding block.   You may have found it easier with the block in the vice, rather than the neck.

Thanks .
Damn it ! You are right about this   , oh well maybe next time ( if it happens ) .

Jazzthat

Andyjr1515 said:

Jazzthat said:

Alright . I am going to try to pull this off myself and learn something new
I am not sure if those gauges by broken nut can be filled up with something or not , but the plan is to just skimm the fingerboard so it looks nice and put new frets in .
Not sure how I go about finishing it . Any suggestions are much appreciated .

Not expensive but decent tools suggestions most welcomed too .

The trouble is, fitting frets and then getting everything right  - inserted, leveled, crowned, chamfered - is one of the few areas of guitar building where specialist tools do tend to be needed.

While it is clear that this neck has been heavily bodged, I'm not as convinced as @ICBM that the frets are completely shot to the point of needing replacing.  I DO agree that the best option would be to try to find another neck, but if this wasn't possible if it was me, I would:
- check that the truss rod works.  If it doesn't, then game over.
- check with a simple rocker (old credit card will do) over each triplet of frets whether they are basically level
- ignore the grooves near the nut, I would get a Stanley Knife blade and use it like a scraper, held with the thumb and finger of both hands between each pair of frets to remove the dirt, varnish, grooves, ripples and uneven binding edges and see how well it comes out.
- all being well with the above, I would then polish up the frets, add a bit of danish oil onto the fretboard, bolt it on, fit a nut and try it.

Thanks mate for good advise . Much appreciated . 
Fret were knackered , some had very little left as someone just took loads of material half way down across .
On the other hand I had discovered , that frets weren't held down at all . 
Some of them lifted up at the ends and when I got my soldering iron ready I realized I didn't even have to use it . 
I pulled the out with just pullers within 1 minute , all of them !

Andyjr1515

Great job on the radiusing! 
 When I get a moment, I'll measure how thick my saw blade is that I use for the slots.  It doesn't have to be a (pricey) 'luthier tools' one, but it does need to be the right thickness.

Jazzthat

Thanks , it was my first attempt on that and so far things look good
As for the blade thickness , I'll be buying gold Evo wire and the size of tang is  0.022" (0.57mm) . 
I am in no rush so I'll be slowly working on that neck buying necessary tools and materials as I go along .