NZGuitars.com

same year, colour etc as mine

Refret time today - started getting rid of the too much glue the previous luthier used to seat the nut. A tiny drop is enough on an angled cut in the lower front face. I'll take a shot when I do it so you know what I mean. Made a very nice clean base for the new bone to sit on. (photos will follow).

Also, there was a lot of glue in the fret slots. And a few of the inlays were loose and had been for sometime. Prior work on it failed to address these issues and as the board was prepped the inlay kept pushing up. The 7th is quite thin now! No matter though.

I'll be making the string spread as wide as possible on this guitar to compensate for the narrower neck. It is a great feeling neck so it worth spending a lot of time getting it right. Using small amounts of animal glue to seat the frets smoothly. I like it as it cleans up with water and dries rock hard.

Looking forward to the photos. Did you score your tuners yet?

Oh, and btw, you are aiming to have this done before the 6th of October I presume?

jvpp wrote:Looking forward to the photos. Did you score your tuners yet?

Oh, and btw, you are aiming to have this done before the 6th of October I presume?

Got some tuners on a good deal. Almost there.

The fest...trying but 50/50.

GrantB wrote:Refret time today - started getting rid of the too much glue the previous luthier used to seat the nut. A tiny drop is enough on an angled cut in the lower front face. I'll take a shot when I do it so you know what I mean. Made a very nice clean base for the new bone to sit on. (photos will follow).

Also, there was a lot of glue in the fret slots. And a few of the inlays were loose and had been for sometime. Prior work on it failed to address these issues and as the board was prepped the inlay kept pushing up. The 7th is quite thin now! No matter though.

Do you use anything specific/jig etc under the guitar the get the neck in the best position before leveling the fret board?

Poor Steve.

Aquila Rossa wrote:Poor Steve.

I think about him, especially when I'm working on the guitar.

I think he approves of what's going on...just the vibe I'm getting

Lostininverness wrote:

GrantB wrote:Refret time today - started getting rid of the too much glue the previous luthier used to seat the nut. A tiny drop is enough on an angled cut in the lower front face. I'll take a shot when I do it so you know what I mean. Made a very nice clean base for the new bone to sit on. (photos will follow).

Also, there was a lot of glue in the fret slots. And a few of the inlays were loose and had been for sometime. Prior work on it failed to address these issues and as the board was prepped the inlay kept pushing up. The 7th is quite thin now! No matter though.

Do you use anything specific/jig etc under the guitar the get the neck in the best position before leveling the fret board?

Once the frets are out I re-straighten the neck as flat as it will go. On old guitars this is sometimes far away from dead flat.

I then do any levelling work and check the straightness as I go. I have a long alloy straight edge.

Once I've completed the refret I straighten it again because very often the neck will end up slightly back bowed from the tangs and any moisture. This guitar was a case in point. I moved a good 1.5mm backwards (upward bow). I loosened the truss and we're back to normal.

TL;DR - No, just keep it straight as I go.

So how would you deal with the neck if it was back bowed and the truss rod was fully loosened? Would you plane the fretboard to flat or "put it" into a flat alignment to do the levelling?

Grant is quite capable of doing the simple things. But if it was something serious like that, there's only one man to tackle it, and that's singlecoil!

Oddly enough I have a guitar with a neck matching that description. Hoping 11s will pull it back into shape, but the necks that much of a fuckin bat I don’t think I’ll move much lol.

Lostininverness wrote:So how would you deal with the neck if it was back bowed and the truss rod was fully loosened? Would you plane the fretboard to flat or "put it" into a flat alignment to do the levelling?

First of all, this sucks when it happens.

You can pull it flat but only to the string tension. And to do that you need some fancy ass equipment. StewMac sells a great jig for this.

I have just created my own tension jig before and it worked well. Just clamped the guitar down with blocks and stuff to pull neck up a bit.

If the backbow is too strong, this will make little difference. Heat and steam "might" work. Vicious down pressure over a longer period also might work but has its problems. I've heard of necks becoming lifeless after heat and pressure treatment.

Maple necks are a problem when this occurs. Mahogany less so...it's more forgiving and will move. Plane it, then refret with tall fret wire and level it out in the middle....that's about the best you can do when everything else fails.

Better still, get a new neck!

Imgur says it is over capacity for uploads. I need to find a new way to share images.

I've come very close to having full string spread width on the 335 because of the approach to the frets and their end angles. It feels great...will post as soon as I figure out using our band site as an image host.

Could you create another imgur account? GrantB 2? Or is it all imgur users?

It’s imgur havin a cry. Should be fine.