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Converting a bronco to fretless

#23
MattS said:
is the neck/fretboard maple? if so, you can just use a dark veneer to fill the frets if you prefer to see the lines, such as mahagony or ebony, lots of different veneer to choose from at woodcraft.com

... if that's what you were referring to.
Click to expand...

Yeah, its maple, I'll probably do that or the polystyrene. Whichever is cheapest/cleanest.
 
#26
I pulled the frets on my beater Stingray copy without needing to heat them. If you heat them you might as well straighten the neck out with the truss and leave it a few days without strings if you really want to do it justice.

I didn't. I had a tool on a swiss army knife that was part flathead screwdriver and part bottle opener that with the right twist you could pop the frets out. I cleaned out the lines with a fret saw. I didn't fill them with wood putty (I heard that is a rookie mistake) so I taped off the board sides and used superglue. 6 tubes coated the thing nicely and filled the slots. I was able to sand that down smooth and then polish it up.

Now the biggy is to get a decent fretless tone at the end of the day. I would suggest filing the nut slots deeper and dunking the action at the bridge, but also be aware that the neck relief may well have to change. The key is not super-low action but you want an exponentially smaller area of string hitting the fingerboard the further away from the fretted note you play, like how a sitar bridge works. Technique also helps get a nice fretless mwaaah.
 
#28
Lots of tips here to do it the right way. MattS? Whew, now that's a job.

And of course you could just lay your soldering iron on the fret for a minute, knock the fret out with a screwdriver, and fill the board with wood putty... it's not great but it's easy and your friends will be like 'omg you has a fretless'

i mean it's just a bronco. :)
 
#30
Dude you might be able to get the frets out without a soldering iron. It depends on the structure of the frets and if they were glued in. I would really gently try the highest fret with a thin screwdriver just to see what the deal is.
 
#32
The soldering iron won't help reduce chips. I found the chips occured where the tines were that embed the frets in the neck. Your best bet is to collect the chips and glue them back in, or refinish the top of the neck and thus fill in the chips.
 
#39
I know this is an old page, but I would like to share some photos and videos of my fretless 2019 Squier Bronco Bass. I bought it newly out of the box from a Sam Ash Music store (in New Jersey) during that year, as summer was ending and fall season was starting. The bass had some history, good and unfortunately bad ones. Overall, it was a great bass I bought for less than $200 when it comes to the quality. From the neck to the electronics, I was expecting some flaws, but no big bad drama, with my Bronco Bass. Here came the problem, 2020 came a long. Between February and April 2020, I wanted to give my bass some upgrades, including a new pickguard, new set of knobs for the volume and tone, and an affordable Korean hot-rail pickup replacement made. As COVID-19 started raiding the States, and things started getting worse by that March, the lockdowns closed many non-essential businesses. From that point, I had to abandoned the mod project, and help take care of my family whenever necessary. It was until the next Spring, 2021, that I was able to get back to work on the mod project. The pandemic was seriously awful to the point I was considering throwing that bass away. I couldn't help it. But some blessings happened, as I considered keeping this bass. As the music store opened back up with safety rules applied (masking and that 6-ft distancing required), I was able to have their guitar tech at that time finish the project. After the project was done, I played my semi-abandoned-but-rescued-and-modified Bronco Bass. I plugged it into an amp. He did an amazing job. The next year came, 2022. As a bass player who has big tastes for a fretless bass. I was considering a fretless conversion on my Bronco Bass, despite it being an expensive job. I took it back to the same store, this time, with a different guitar tech who was just as gifted as the previous tech. He said sure, as he would take the frets out and replace them with white binding veneers. The photos will be listed below. After the neck was safely and beautifully de-fretted, I used a fresh set of lighter-gauge, nickel-plated, round-wound strings. I played it at some shows. It sounded very nice, especially with the new set of pickups, giving the bass some growling sound you'd hear on a fretless bass. Recently, I replaced the strings with a set of GHS pressure-wound strings. I was still able to get some fretless growls with those strings. It's now another bass I want to keep and even use for recording. Nice try COVID-19! You lost and I won! Once again, I want to thank those 2 men at the Sam Ash Music store (in Edison NJ) that did great in this bass project. Here are some photos and videos. Sorry for the long story, but all of what happened was a long story. (heavy sigh... yes, that's how I feel. #LOL!) Now, here are some photos and videos on my 2019 fretless Bronco Bass.

  • September 2019: This is how the bass looked like shortly after taking it out from the store with simple set-ups. Invalid Link Removed`
  • December 2019: I made a bass cover video for the song "Leviathan" by Volbeat.
  • March 2020: I made another bass cover video for the song "Die to Live" by Volbeat.
  • April 2021: The bass was successfully modified with the following: custom pick-guard, Korean hot-rail pickups (to kill the excessive humming noises and give out more clear tones), and a white set of Strat-style knobs. Invalid Link Removed
  • March 2022: My Bronco Bass became fretless. Invalid Link RemovedInvalid Link Removed
  • July 2022: I made a demo video and a bass cover using my now-fretless Bronco Bass. It's on my YouTube channel.
  • September 2023: A set of GHS pressure-wound strings replaced the previous set on my Bronco Bass (I don't remember when exactly). I did a quick fretless project with my de-fretted Sterling (affordable counterpart of Ernie Ball) by Music Man StingRay 5 (Ray25CA). That StingRay now has a black pick-guard to make it resemble Pino Palladino's fretless old-school Music Man StingRay. Invalid Link RemovedVideo: Short/Reel: https://youtube.com/shorts/aARIaao54wI?feature=shared
  • November 2023: A photo of my fretless Bronco Bass with GHS pressure-wound strings.Invalid Link Removed
 
#40
Bromosapian said:
I've been thinking about converting my squier bronco bass to fretless for a while. I never use it since getting a VM jazz bass, so this is better than selling (I guess).

So I have two options from what I can tell: Remove the frets and fill them, or get a whole new neck. What would the hivemind suggest?

note: I don't really care about sound all that much, I just want something to cheaply learn fretless on.
Click to expand...
There are YouTubes by luthiers about taking frets out
 
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