bad frettless job

[ugly_bassplayer]

OK, here goes nothing.

I have a MM stingray neck that was defretted by a drunk.
(I don't want to here the coulda woulda shoulda speech form you guys)

Anyway, the tech did this by buffing the frets until
only the tangs were left in the neck (metal blades), (I know really stupid way to do it ).

So a couple of months back I decided to use the neck on a warmoth project and refretted the neck only to find out that he buffed it unevenly(not level across the board). So the frets need to be leveled differently to solve this.

Is there any way to fix this (other than level the frets which I have already done, it is a good fix but not perfect)......putting a new board on the neck is pretty expensive and MM sell their beck 400$ plus you must send in the one you have (I find this pretty dumb even if I understand why they do this. )

Any info is welcome.
(It really makes me mad because the warmoth bass sounds really awesome, no joke one of the best sounding P bass' I 've heard.)

[testing1two]

Ideally you would pull the frets and plane/sand the fingerboard until it is uniform and straight and then refret. This assumes there's enough material left on the fingerboard. I would probably replace the neck at this point. In fact, Warmoth or USACG could make you a very similar neck for half of the cost of an MM replacement.

[ugly_bassplayer]

I think there is enough material on the board to do this.
What do you think about changing the board?

As for warmoth replacement necks go they don't make necks with the pocket size of MM bass'.

[ugly_bassplayer]

I should have mentioned that I want to salvage the neck.

[vejesse]

This is kind of an interesting concept for a fretless neck. I don't know who will end up doing the work if you want to save the neck but if you leave the fret tangs in there, the neck is going to be nice and stiff. This is good. The difficulty I see here is that the wood is much softer than the brass/nickel of the fretwire and as you sand you could give the fingerboard a 'scalloped' effect as the wood sands away faster than the metal. Check you progress with a straight edge, maybe it will work. You might want to run some water thin superglue into the fret slots before you start sanding - this will help the tangs stay down.

[ugly_bassplayer]

The tangs have been removed and the neck now re-fretted.
It's the buffing that caused the uneven fretboard.(not level)

[vejesse]

Why wouldn't the fingerboard be leveled before the frets were installed? Have the newly installed frets been leveled? We've got a disconnect here.

[ugly_bassplayer]

Ok....it's the wood part of the neck that is not level.
The frets are leveled, just really much thinner in a certain area to compensate this.

[vejesse]

Looks like you're going to have to refret the neck. This time level the fingerboard before you put the frets in.

[ugly_bassplayer]

That's what I thought........
Sand the wood part of the neck down.....then refret.
then level........
I knew that it wasn't a total loss. It really peeved my off because this franken bass turned out really killer sounding.

[vejesse]

Let me give you a word of advice. Fretting a neck is not easy and it takes a lot of trial and error before you even have a clue. If you're set on doing it yourself that's great. Get yourself some books, i.e. the Dan Erlewine book or the Don Teeter books and read the chapters on fretwork SEVERAL times before you try this again. You'll need a few tools but most importantly you need COMMON SENSE and some MECHANICAL APTITUDE. These are the important tools.

[ugly_bassplayer]

I do basic setup, but this is a job for my luthier.
But I will check those books out since I am looking to further my knowledge on the said subject.
Thank you for your insight.