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Defretting a Neck-thru Bass?

B

bassplayer7768521

Jun 30, 2009
138
1
#1
Hey guys,

The idea of having one of my basses defretted struck my mind the other day. I'm not to knowledgeable on the subject, so I was wondering if some of you fine people could assist me with some questions I have:

1. Is defretting a very costly process? I realize that it will vary depending on where/who you take it to, but in general, is it overly costly?

2. Is it not a good idea to defret a neck-thru bass, considering you can't really attach a new neck if you wear it down?

3. Have any of you dealt with getting a bass stripped of its frets to make it fretless in your time playing?

I apologize in advance if some of these questions have very obvious answers to some people, I'm just not at all familiar with this sort of thing.

Thanks! :D
 
#2
1: taking the frets out, is about £120 in the uk... and about 150 euro in most places i've known off...

2: you'll literally take AGES to wear down the finger board.. and each time you "wear it down" you can always reshoot it.. and that can be done a few times... but believe be on that.. just use roundwound, don't worry... you'll take ages to "chew" ur fingerboard..
and if you manage to chew it.. a fingerboard can always be replaces, no need to change the neck


3: yeah.. no prb...
 
#3
pierreganseman said:
1: taking the frets out, is about £120 in the uk... and about 150 euro in most places i've known off...

2: you'll literally take AGES to wear down the finger board.. and each time you "wear it down" you can always reshoot it.. and that can be done a few times... but believe be on that.. just use roundwound, don't worry... you'll take ages to "chew" ur fingerboard..
and if you manage to chew it.. a fingerboard can always be replaces, no need to change the neck


3: yeah.. no prb...
Click to expand...

Hey, thanks for the reply! I guess it's a good option if I was a pretty nice fretless without having to buy a brand new instrument altogether.
 
#5
pierreganseman said:
May i recommend the gary willis bass... i think it's called the GW 35. Anyway it's the cheap version of it. It's about £600. 5 strings. 16.5 mm string spacing. Very nice frettless bass for a starter.. imho
Click to expand...

Thank you for the suggestion, however, I usually stick to 4 strings, and that is a bit on the expensive side for something I may end up not enjoying as much as I thought I would.
 

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