Defretted Finish

Although I've never done what you are doing, I do have experience with woodworking. And off the top of my head I would stay away from putting plastic(or anything else in those slots). Wood 'breaths' and plastic does not. You don't want to have a hot humid day cause those sucker to start coming out... Wood will expand, and although you will not see it with you eye, a piece of well fitted plastic will feel the difference.

As far as coating the fingerboard you will have to get someone else for that ... I would assume oil, because you still want that wood feel, and Poly will only give you the plasic feel. As a matter of fact DO NOT use Poly on any part of your bass. It dries very hard and could only lead to cracking. A nice wood varnish would be better but I would stick with oil.

Hope this helped a little-
K.

 

Hi,
I agree, the small amount of moolah that you'll need to spend on wood far outweighs the problems you will have with plastic/resin.
Wood is also a lot easier to work too.
As for fingerboard finish a light coat of lemon oil should do the trick.
I'll try and post a pic. of the neck of the bass I defretted (when I get home ...I'm at work!)

 

Rick Turner uses some kind of plastic as fret markers on fretless basses he makes - mine has those too. He's been using them for years, and I never heard of anyone having a problem with them.

 

Forgot to mention..I live in the Middle East... we have days with 120F+ (52C) and 100% humidity - nothing popped out or even moved.

 

I filled my slots with rosewood dust I made with a Dremel tool, from a warped POS neck I had laying around. You can hardly see the lines, but they are there if you want them. I coated the fretboard with self-leveling marine epoxy (from Lowes). It turned out very nice.

 

Ok - Brooks proved me wrong. It may (in that case) be a good idea to check out what they do when they assemble those necks with the plastic fret markers in order to keep them from shifting(if you decide on plastic). Once you get them perfectly level with the finger board, you want to be sure that they don't move! You don't want to be playing and realize that you now have plastic frets!!

I agree that a little oil(TUNG!) - (use linseed only if you want to burn down the house!) - is what you should use to finish it ... Whenever using oil be sure to deposit the rags properly. Not only for the environment, but they can ignite on their own from the heat they generate(especally linseed)!

Let us know what you end up doing and how it turns out.

K.

 

To be honest, not sure what it is. I remember there was an article on a web site about it, by Rick Turner himself - it may be worth searching for it. Plastic is white, and in my case, lines are only under the E string. Fingerboard is uncoated Pau Fero (sp?). Bass is now three years old, and fingerboard is in great shape, even though I play nickel roundwounds.

 

Wet sanding? Why would you do that to begin with ... i don't think its necessary. Its probably going to be pretty smooth when you begin sanding, so start at like 200 and progress up to something like 400 ...

Keep us posted on how it comes out ...

 

OK...did the search, and here's the link to that Rick Turner article: http://archive.bassplayer.com/z2000/0004/frettech.shtml

Here's the section that speaks about the plastic:
"Installing Fret Lines

Although some people use maple veneer for inlaid lines, I prefer .020" styrene, available through plastics suppliers or hobby shops. Fret slots are generally .022"–.025" wide, so the styrene markers slip in with just the right clearance for glue. To install them, cut strips 1/8" longer than the fingerboard width and a bit wider than the slots’ depth; put them in the slots, and then apply super glue (cyanoacrylate or Krazy Glue) to each side of the protruding plastic. The glue will wick easily into all cracks and narrow spaces. After waiting 10 or 15 minutes, apply a second coat. Once the glue has set, file and sand down the excess styrene.

Be very careful with super glue! Don’t let it get on the neck finish; if it does, immediately wipe it off. Cyanoacrylate loves to bond to nitrocellulose lacquer. If it gets onto a polyester finish, you can generally remove it with super-glue debonder. I got super glue in my eye once, so I have researched its toxicity. It hurt like hell, but the good news is it does no permanent damage, and it’s not particularly toxic."

 

I filled mine with a stuff called "Mircle Wood" which is this stuff you can get at a hardware store, what it is, is a sawdust compound in a paste form that after you put it in dries hard. The good thing about this stuff is if it will accept and absorb a finish. I put a polyurathane coat on mine, don't do the same... it will mess stuff up and its horrible. Stew Mac has some freboard finishing oil, that I'd suggest using. Its made for Ebony and Rosewood fretboards, you just wipe it on, wipe off the excess and buff it... and it dries hard in 24 hours. Its also not supposed to get sticky when it becomes warm.

 

Right - I know what wetsanding is ... I just don't think you need to do it. You only wet sand wood that may have a finish already on it, but then you are not really sanding wood. Just sand is my advise... Make sure you don't use anything less than 200. You don't want to take much wood away!

 

If you were to put tung oil on the finger board would that be enough to protect it from the strings? I play nickel rounds and I'm gonna defret my bass pretty soon. So I'd like to know what to coat the fingerboard with. I've seen loads of people on TB say that an uncoated finger board will be destroyed by rounds. You guys are the first to say don't use hard-drying stuff on the fingerboard and leave it. So what's the deal?

 

I certainly wouldn't use it "wet", But it is more durable than regular paper. I would bet if you use it wet with plastic lines, the wood will swell and eventually when it shrinks back down the fret lines will be higher than the board and you will have to resand the fretboard dry. Use fine grade scotch brite pads for the final buff. Works great. When I defretted mine I used the dust mixed with glue from sanding to fill the fretlines. It is as close to a perfect match as you can get.

 

The truss rod adjusts neck relief and is really for fine tuning, not gross adjustments of your action. It only makes sense the nut needs to be filed...the frets are gone. Are your string saddles as low as you can get them?