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Fretless neck - now pics of in progress!


Jakester
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Help builders!

I have just removed the frets from a Yamaha RBX as an experiment. Fret removal went perfectly, so now I need to fill the slots and sand the board. 

I just have no idea as to what should be the perfect radius for the board. The Yamaha website suggests there's no difference between fretted and fretless, with a 10deg radius. 

Should I just stick with that?

Edited by Jakester
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Yes, it was more about just taking off the old fret edges, filling the slots and sanding smooth, but wondered if there is any better/worse option to try whilst I had it in bits. 

 

Maple veneer ordered, and now trying to decide whether to try a Tru-oil finish or poly varnish on the FB (only intending to use flats). 

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So, I've been busy...

I thought I'd document my very amateurish progress on my first ever project!

Neck after defret and a quick sand to remove sharp edges:

IMG_7576.thumb.JPG.ec272cf7870851f5c08a3199a5c2f937.JPG

Slots filled with cuts of maple veneer. Superglue used. I started using the veneer strips cut with the grain, and then thought I'd try cutting against the grain. BIG mistake - it's much more difficult to trim by knife and really didn't like being sanded. 

IMG_7578.thumb.JPG.2d08745dea139ef32e8419dfbc9cdf78.JPG

After trimming and a quick rough sand to partially level the veneer. In retrospect, I wouldn't use SG again as it has stained the fretboard. Hopefully the finishing sanding will clear the staining though. 

 

Had a couple of bits of veneer break out when sanding - obviously not an even enough layer of SG. 

IMG_7580.thumb.JPG.5d189ad63a996a30fb7b29c4ff1ff815.JPG

So, I have Tru-oil - I just need to get some finer grade sandpaper and some wire wool. Hoping to finish it tomorrow!

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Sorry to add this after your hard work, but for info, 36 years ago I defretted a neck and used a darkish woodfiller rather than wooden inserts.

Finished the rosewood board with a darker stain and waxed after fine sanding. I was never bothered about changing neck profile etc as the neck was perfectly playable whilst fretted. 

It's never let me down since. Audiences may disagree mind, as my band mates always referred to it as my Tuneless bass....   😖

 

:laugh1:

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51 minutes ago, BassTool said:

Sorry to add this after your hard work, but for info, 36 years ago I defretted a neck and used a darkish woodfiller rather than wooden inserts.

Finished the rosewood board with a darker stain and waxed after fine sanding. I was never bothered about changing neck profile etc as the neck was perfectly playable whilst fretted. 

   

 

My thoughts and experience exactly, but as the fretboard on mine was black, and I couldn’t get black filler, I spray painted it black with satin finish, carefully masking the sides.  Even though the fret slots were filled and painted, they could still be seen, just enough to aid fingering.

Edited by Baxlin
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21 hours ago, BassTool said:

Sorry to add this after your hard work, but for info, 36 years ago I defretted a neck and used a darkish woodfiller rather than wooden inserts.

Finished the rosewood board with a darker stain and waxed after fine sanding. I was never bothered about changing neck profile etc as the neck was perfectly playable whilst fretted. 

It's never let me down since. Audiences may disagree mind, as my band mates always referred to it as my Tuneless bass....   😖

 

:laugh1:

Yep - this experience has showed me I should probably have used darker wood, or plastic. 

Filled the tear-outs with dust and SG, but they're showing as a very different colour. Hopefully they'll take on the oil and settle to the same as the FB. 

First coat of tru-oil slurry sanding was very disappointing - it seems I should have been more careful with the maple inserts, as some of them have taken on a much darker hue from the slurry, so I have an uneven finish to the fret markers, which is a shame given the effort. I may just get my lad's colouring pens and even them out! :D

On the upside, the FB feels silky smooth after 1200 grit and first slurry sand. I'm sure it'll be perfectly functional, just not quite as nice looking as I'd have hoped. 

After 240 grit:

IMG_7587.thumb.JPG.b9f76291deb0bf9c1712f088cd708833.JPG

Up to 600 grit after wiping the dust off:

IMG_7586.thumb.JPG.e366dd5f8e79a87bf0726beedb19aec2.JPG

(not sure why pics are showing upside down...

 

Edited by Jakester
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All finished and strung up, and immediately  a workmanship issue has come to the fore: I didn't clean out the fret slots before filling, which meant that the fret markers don't extend to the edge of the fretboard. Meaning, I can't see where the fret edges are when playing! 

 

Looks like I'll be more out of tune than I thought! 😂

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On 25/09/2018 at 19:31, Jakester said:

All finished and strung up, and immediately  a workmanship issue has come to the fore: I didn't clean out the fret slots before filling, which meant that the fret markers don't extend to the edge of the fretboard. Meaning, I can't see where the fret edges are when playing! 

 

Looks like I'll be more out of tune than I thought! 😂

You could put small side dots on the line like an unlined bass rather than the in between position like the top dots?

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That's all I have on my Vantage fretless - the dots are where frets would have been.  There are no markers on the face of the fingerboard nor any lines.  The side dots don't make me sound like I can handle a fretless, you understand, but they are all you need if, like me, you haven't got your ear in well enough to intonate well without visual cues.

Edited by SpondonBassed
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  • 2 weeks later...

A short coda to this.

I decided to replace the side dot markers; well, initially I decided to replace all the fret line markers as well, but after taking about 15 mins to make a small dent in my test fret line, I decided I could probably live with the darkened lines. 

However, after a few days' playing it became apparent that the board wasn't sealed properly - it was showing string marks even though I was using flats - so I decided to refinish it at the same time. 

So, I picked up some 2mm dot plastic, and (with varying degrees of success) drilled out the existing markers and put new ones in. It's safe to say if you're a fan of squiffy markers then you'll love this - but they do the job. The filling of the existing holes was less than optimal, but after refinishing a real cheat's touch up with a black pen means they're indistinguishable at more than a couple of inches. 

I re-sanded the fingerboard too - I realised where I went wrong the first time (which led to the discolouration) was not putting a couple of coats of Tru-oil on first, before the slurry sanding. So, after sanding the FB down to 600 grit (which led to a much more consistent colour in the maple inserts, thankfully) I applied a couple of coats of Tru-oil, let that harden and THEN started the wet sanding. Did a few passes over a couple of days, and then finished with a couple of very thin, finger-applied coats on top. 

Plays beautifully (at least, to me!) and looks a LOT better. Dots make it easier to play, albeit the slightly skew-whiff ones make my teeth itch. Still, a satisfying end result (more or less!). 

 

IMG_7612.thumb.JPG.81a6a533c76bcbd3da6d48285698fb36.JPG

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