Fretless boards: harder than CA or Epoxy, but still manageable? Does it exist?

[dkelley]

Planned obsolence, perhaps?? Why is my brand new $1000 cel-phone designed to be tossed in a landfill in 3-4 years, after its operating system becomes "unsupported"? Is this "the way of the world"? Or...

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ACK! That's scary.... but possibly true! Specially believable considering the economic state of the guitar/bass industry these days - fender, gibson, etc all having issues, most instruments made in countries that can do it more cheaply than North America (canada/USA... heck even mexico costs appear to be too high for most manufacturers to make a profit, these days)

 

[Bruce Johnson]

A suggestion: The problem here may be with the sealer/technique that the manufacturers are using on the fingerboards. All fingerboards, even on the least expensive instruments, are coated with something to protect them from moisture. Most of us use a hardening polyurethane sealer.

They may be skipping the hardening sealer step and just blasting on a heavy coat of wax or silicone-base non-hardening liquid, just to make the fingerboard look shiny in the box. Saving pennies of manufacturing cost.

What I'm saying is that the problem isn't that the wood is too soft. It may be soaked with something that the CA glue won't bond to. Under some pounding, the skin of CA cracks and starts chipping off. The same would probably happen with epoxy, unless it was really thick.

You may need to do a much more thorough cleaning of the board before applying the CA. If it's soaked with a thin silicone, it may not be possible to clean it out enough to get the CA to bond.

 

[yberwaffe]

Still no pics.

 

[selowitch]

This makes me want to buy a Squier fretless with an ebonol board. The only trouble with those very nice basses is that they tend to weigh a lot.

 

[JRA]

I totally get his point - didn't you?

yeah, i totally did.

a luthier with his knowledge, and his 'beef', could say to customers:
"be careful, some manufacturers are selling instrument models for the usual prices, but some of those axes are made with inferior (e.g.) rosewoods. they get mangled easily. i've tried fixing them to no avail. i've seen a lot of them. be careful when you buy...it may not be what you expect." he could give anecdotes re: brands, models, repair attempts.

my old luthier would have made a statement like that. he would have gladly 'educated' me to problems in the market. doesn't your luthier inform you?

 

[dkelley]

yeah, i totally did.

a luthier with his knowledge, and his 'beef', could say to customers:
"be careful, some manufacturers are selling instrument models for the usual prices, but some of those axes are made with inferior (e.g.) rosewoods. they get mangled easily. i've tried fixing them to no avail. i've seen a lot of them. be careful when you buy...it may not be what you expect." he could give anecdotes re: brands, models, repair attempts.

my old luthier would have made a statement like that. he would have gladly 'educated' me to problems in the market. doesn't your luthier inform you?

your old luthier? How many do you have?

I have none... like nearly all musicians. Well I have one, but he's for violin work, not electric basses. Well said, by the way, but I just am not following the relevance to this thread, based on the OP's previous points.

So, to your point - no, my luthier (if I had one) wouldn't be able to inform me of this problem if he/she wasn't previously aware of this problem in the given instrument(s), based on their prior experience their work turning out well on other instruments.

It's possible to see, I would think, in retrospect if there is an issue with woods. But in the OP's case, I believe, if one does what one normally does, on good brand name instruments (or heck, even on entry level instruments for that matter), a process that formerly worked well on other instruments of similar design, only to find that now on several instruments the technique no longer works properly.... how could one have forewarned the customer?

He didn't know from his experience, prior. I believe. So your suggestion isn't really going to help him here, since it isn't the same as the situation he was in when performing the work in the first place that later failed.

 

[swink]

Just thinking outside the box:
If there's no other solution... put frets on it so your client still has a usable bass.
and tell him to look out for an affordable older (better) fretless.

 

[dwizum]

You may need to do a much more thorough cleaning of the board before applying the CA. If it's soaked with a thin silicone, it may not be possible to clean it out enough to get the CA to bond.

Given the prevalence of threads out in the other forums where people are discussing all sorts of oils, waxes, and other products to put on their fingerboards, it would not surprise me if the customers themselves had been the ones to add the contamination.

 

[JRA]

your old luthier? How many do you have?

one dead, two living, one of which is nearby.


OP: sorry about the derail! well, you've informed us! thanks! i'll pass along the info as needed.

 

[bassdude51]

Ummm, I think the question ought to be.............should round wound strings be expected to NOT damage fretboards?

Go flats, problem solved.

Otherwise, figure on having a fretboard plained down several times in it's life and eventually the neck will be worn out and need to be replaced. Hopefully it's a bolt on neck.

Ebony is as hard as a real wood fretboard can get but a set of Rotosound Strings will eat it up. Other round wounds will too.

Do I really want my strings vibrating off of some non organic material like epoxy?

Go flats!

It seems strange to me that bass guitar fretless players want a sound like an upright, then why use rounds. Stand-ups use flats.

Anyway, I personally don't care what kind of strings are used. Rounds eat! And they will eat any kind of fretboard other than steel.

 

[Jisch]

I have several fretless basses with flatwounds, but mostly I use round wounds. All my fretless basses that have round wound strings have CA coated boards. I don't expect them to sound like an upright, but I do like how expressive my playing can be with a fretless, even with round wound strings.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

You can read my rant in my reply to the thread Is it necessary to coat a rosewood fretless fretboard?

So basically I had customers bringing me quite recent fretless basses (2 LTDs, 2 Schecters, 1 Yamaha, 1 Sire/Marcus Miller) with damaged "rosewood" fingerboards from rather limited use.

Turns out the "rosewoods" used, are way too soft to be considered proper wood for fretless boards.

Even after a proper CA (crazy gluen, super glue) treatement, they STILL are too soft. I tried Epoxy on the Yamaha, also too soft a result.

Darn. Excluding a board replacement, I find myself in a position where I can not satisfy my customers. I'm kinda forced to tell them, in some way or another, that their instrument... well... is a piece of crap (fingerboard-wise). Lol.

So my question is, does someone here know a manageable, not crazy expensive coating process ending up in something harder than CA and Epoxy?

I used poly on mine. Real poly. Not that waterborne/low voc crap. Real oil based polyurethane. Light sand and thorough clean between about 6 or so coats. Haven't had a problem at all.

 

[IamBuzzy]

More humorously than not I ask... what did Jaco do? After he ripped out his frets why didn’t his fretboard get worn out quickly?

 

[Samatza]

The Tune fretless in my avatar had an original rosewood fretboard, it lasted about 10 years with regular dressing.
We finally replaced it with an ebony board and after about 20 years the ebony is still holding up well.

When we did this the sound became brighter and I'm guessing it's because the ebony is much harder than the rosewood.

So it may be that not all rosewoods are equal and will wear at different rates?

 

[somebrains]

I’m not an expert, but I believe epoxy comes in differing levels of final hardness. I believe WestSystems has a spec sheet listing them on their website.

Also, Polyurethane for bowling alleys is supposed to be very very tough.

Did you wet the boards down with acetone first? This helps the epoxy to really draw into the wood grain.

I knew guys in the 90's that used boat or plane epoxy.
Humidity and temp controlled environment.
Someone was talking about pressure treating fretboards back then, don't think it went anywhere.

Has anyone reached out the the Alper guys and asked them what hardness they get?

 

[CryingBass]

 

[CryingBass]

More seriously, several guys on TB have used roundwounds on fretless without major damage to the fretboard,
even over many years. Sure playing style has a big impact too ( see above! ). I think string bending has a lot to do with that. But I know sxxx.....

Popcorn!

 

[Watchootognbout]

So these players are crushing the fretboard material so drastically that the CA becomes unsupported and cracks?

What kind of death grip are they using? Pressure adequate to stop the string at the fingerboard is all that is required.

NB I am not denying your opinion of the wood quality, but playing style must also be a contributing factor here.

So is there some unknown third factor that is causing the fingerboard to need treatment in the first place?

You got carried away there, I think.

Its quite likely the "Claypool Syndrome"
This happens when everyone thinks it's the thing to slap on a fretless.
You're basically whipping the fretless fingerboard with steel.

Then extreme fingerboard wear ensues.

 

[Rabidhamster]

Still no pics.

One might say it never even happened...

 

[CryingBass]

Its quite likely the "Claypool Syndrome"
This happens when everyone thinks it's the thing to slap on a fretless.
You're basically whipping the fingerboard with steel strings.
Then extreme fingerboard wear ensues.

+1. Give 'em stainless fretboards I say! ( hey, that's a TM if nobody's doing that yet

WMAW