Home repair on my fretless's fingerboard

[Pie]

Hello,

I recently purchased a fretless Ibanez '82 Roadster for some grimy goodness and the low C and D positions under the A string are worn away through the top layer, thus causing the notes to die instantly. Are there any home solutions I could try on it like PVA glue, wax, a bats wing or summat? I'm not too fussed about it being bling, I kind of wanted it to be raw, but these notes are close to unplayable at the mo. Really don't want to replace the neck, or take it to a shop either.

Any help anyone could give me would be much appreciated. If you think pics would help, then let me know and I'll post some up.

Ta!

[unclejane]

Originally Posted by Pie

Hello,

I recently purchased a fretless Ibanez '82 Roadster for some grimy goodness and the low C and D positions under the A string are worn away through the top layer, thus causing the notes to die instantly. Are there any home solutions I could try on it like PVA glue, wax, a bats wing or summat? I'm not too fussed about it being bling, I kind of wanted it to be raw, but these notes are close to unplayable at the mo. Really don't want to replace the neck, or take it to a shop either.

Any help anyone could give me would be much appreciated. If you think pics would help, then let me know and I'll post some up.

Ta!

Well building up a new finish on the board wouldn't be the problem, it's getting it smooth again once it's done.

Be careful as this can send you to the rubber room in a new york city minute.

My tobias 6 string fretless came down with the inlays all starting to pop up creating a terrible buzzy mess (I'll never buy a boutique bass ever again) not too long ago.
It was a total loss already so I decided to epoxy the fingerboard myself. Took about a week to get 5 or 6 coats on it but the sanding I tried to do with just a small sanding block.

It's playable now, but what was really needed is a radius block from a luthier shop.

So.... I say thumbs up on the epoxy fix (be sure and use very slow cure, at least 60 minutes and plan on at least a week after the last coat for it to cure to a sandable hardness) but don't try to sand the board with just a regular block.

A good radius block is expensive if you really want to do the job right (100 bucks plus) so you have to guage that vs. the value of the bass.

The epoxy finish works really well, tho it'll significantly brighten the tone and add a LOT of "muaahh".

Should be easy with a good radius block tho....

LS

[fretlessman71]

These don't look too pricey... http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdpro...=Radius+Blocks

[62bass]

That's a lot cheaper than Stew Mac. They could be good.

I've done the epoxy thing on a few fretless fingerboards. Yes, it's a real pain and you have to plan ahead. Everything you don't want epoxied must be masked off. I leveled the fingerboard first but didn't use a radius block, just a flat hardwood block about 9" long. I worked carefully to maintain the original radius.

Once the epoxy is mixed you have a certain amount of time to apply it before it's not useable. Mine set up too thick in about 20 minutes but that was plenty of time to get a nice level coat on. It hardened enough overnight to sand the next day and apply another coat, but the speed of hardening depends on temperature and the epoxy. It took 3 coats on the rosewood boards I worked on, but some epoxies are very thin and will take more. I used epoxy made for bar tops and it was fairly thick.

The epoxy needs to be warmed with a heat source such as a hair dryer to get the inevitable bubbles to rise to the surface and pop. I easily wound up with a mirror finish, but didn't like it so sanded it with 600 grit to get a satin surface. The mirror finish looks too cheap and cheesy to me.

You do have to wait at least a week to get the full hardness of the epoxy before stringing up again.

Anyhow, this is a waste of time because there's a sticky somewhere on this forum that covers all this.

[Pie]

Originally Posted by 62bass

Anyhow, this is a waste of time because there's a sticky somewhere on this forum that covers all this.

Whoops. Sorry, but thanks for all your help peeps!