Cybergimp109 Posted August 28, 2010 Share Posted August 28, 2010 defretted my ibanez sr506 as i dont use it too much atall anymore and wanted to breathe some new life into it. been thinking about doing this for ages, gave up thinnking and started doing. Happy enough with how its gone so far so thought id throw up a few pics anyway.. removed the frets with a soldering iron and plyers/knife(plyers didnt work too well and couldnt find better ones anyway no chips as i was very careful and wouldnt recommend anyone else do it this way. i had to use the bass so restrung it for a while sounded great even like this though lost something when i went over the empty frets. sawed the frets straight with a hacksaw so i didnt have to radius the veneer, which turned out very handy as the ebony veneer i bought was quite brittle and hard to but in straight lines so curves would have been impossible. while sawing i made a few mistakes but only surface scratches really. anyway cut the ebony into strips and glued in witha decent wood glue left to dry for a few hours sanded with a sanding block as i couldnt find a radius block. if anyone can tell me where i can get a fairly cheap one in europe somewhere(16mm i think) then i think i may get it and tidy it up a bit but as of yet i havent reatached the neck so i may be happy with how it is. the frets are alot darker than they appear in certain pictures looks really nice against the fretboard anyway visible but not too visible. all thats left is to get a set of flatwound strings sand it a little smoother for asthetics and possibly finish with a wax, oil or epoxy. how necessary are any of these? is a raw board ok? i have read that no finish is normal enough and gets a different sound to epoxy but does this mean wax or nothing atall? either way can someone recommend me anything i need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero9 Posted August 28, 2010 Share Posted August 28, 2010 If you're happy with the sound & finish, there's no need to add anything more. Wear would be minimal with flatwounds in any case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve-soar Posted August 29, 2010 Share Posted August 29, 2010 That looks fantastic, well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimBobTTD Posted August 29, 2010 Share Posted August 29, 2010 Looks great! Where did you get the ebony veneer from? I'm planning on doing this to an Ibanez 5er in the near future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybergimp109 Posted August 30, 2010 Author Share Posted August 30, 2010 (edited) cheers yeh im really pleased how it ended up thought i would screw it up. re-atached the neck and it sounds really nice too just a few setup things to be done and waiting for flatwounds then itll be finished properly. few pics anyway [quote name='JimBobTTD' post='939547' date='Aug 29 2010, 07:41 PM']Looks great! Where did you get the ebony veneer from? I'm planning on doing this to an Ibanez 5er in the near future.[/quote] couldnt find any veneer anywhere other than a supplier as diy shops here in ireland are useless and the minimum they would sell me is like 9x9 feet.. so i have a ridiculous amount lying around. if you want some i can post a few bits of it over aslong as the postage isnt much anyway. though the veneer is a bit fragile when youre cutting it up it can be awkward though it looks nice has little stripes through the frets. Edited August 30, 2010 by Cybergimp109 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimBobTTD Posted August 31, 2010 Share Posted August 31, 2010 That's rather nice of you, thanks! I'll drop you a line (and fund postage and pint, of course!) when the time nears. Again, it looks really nice. Glad to hear it sounds good too. This is the kind of stuff you want to hear just before you embark on a similar project! Well done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoonBassAlpha Posted August 31, 2010 Share Posted August 31, 2010 Alternatively, you could fill the slots with woodfiller and sand flat - works a treat. My U.S. Masters fretless neck apparently has the slots done (at the factory) in black epoxy. Looks lush! On my last 2 home defret jobs I used woodfiller (dark) for the slots and finished the board in Tru-Oil. That sands down to a really smooth finish, really easy to do too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybergimp109 Posted August 31, 2010 Author Share Posted August 31, 2010 [quote name='JimBobTTD' post='941272' date='Aug 31 2010, 07:29 PM']That's rather nice of you, thanks! I'll drop you a line (and fund postage and pint, of course!) when the time nears. Again, it looks really nice. Glad to hear it sounds good too. This is the kind of stuff you want to hear just before you embark on a similar project! Well done![/quote] no worries, cheers sounds good though its the only fretless ive played but to me sounds like a fretless should, nice and mwah'ish and can get a great tone messing with pickups and eq etc. pulling out the frets is the only thing that can go wrong anyway just be careful during that and youll end up with something good and woodfiller works this is my second try at defretting, the previous attempt was on a piece of cr*p bass i bought off a friend for 2 euro, when i took out the frets i got a good few chips due to rushing possibly and a very dry brittle neck i dunno it was years ago but used filler on that and due to the chips it looked weird, with the veneer i thought itd be easy to cover up and you can use the wood to fill the chips if there are any but didnt really need to on this one anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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