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Yamaha BB350F to BB1999 (or something)


AndyTravis
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It's been a bit of a bitty day today so in between 'normal life' stuff, I was able to do some more bits with this - particularly some specific bits I needed to remember.

One of those is that it was previously fretless...with rounded fretboard edges.  And that's different to how you make a fretted board. 

With the latter, you fit the frets to a radiussed, square-edged, fretboard so the frets follow the radius to the very ends.  You then round the wood edges in between the frets. 

But with a fretless, there are no frets and so you round the whole length of the edges.  So when you fret a fretless, you have a rounded board at the ends of each fret.  Blurred photo, but can you see the resulting gaps here where the fretboard radius tightens at the edges? :

jzAvmmml.jpg

Well - even though the tang slots will be filled with rosewood-coloured epoxy and could fill the edges, you will still end up with sharp fret-ends, either from the start or after some playing.  

But I can't just whack the ends because that will loosen the frets!  And so out comes the radius block again and, with that clamped to the frets to keep them fully secure -  and inset the right amount so you don't affect the radius where the strings are going to be - then you can whack them with a hammer :D

49t9ApQl.jpg

So you end up with this:

U0rwiGzl.jpg

And now you can happily clip the overhang:

0hZxP8dl.jpg

 

And, after sanding the ends flush, this is ready now for the tang-slot filling and the proper fret-end rounding.  You can see here just how big that gap would have been if I hadn't taken that extra step:

qxnrfVjl.jpg

 

And here's the board ready for the next step...probably get back to it middle of the coming week:

k2bZcVNl.jpg

 

 

 

 

Edited by Andyjr1515
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Bet you all thought I'd forgotten about this!  ;)

Next job is filling the tang slots and any remaining gaps between the fret-ends and the board edge. 

I use Z-poxy mixed with rosewood sanding dust.  The epoxy is squeezed into the end slot and then overfilled to allow for any sinkage.  Should look and feel OK once it's sanded flush and clean of the wood:

Vfxdw4Ml.jpg

After this, it's just a case of levelling, recrowning and polishing the frets and it can be shipped back to Andy.  Should be all done by the end of this week :)

 

  

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For levelling, these are the main things I use.

b4q0gRAl.jpg

First I adjust the truss rod (it works!) to flatten the neck and then use the Crimson rocker (you can use a snipped credit card but I find this durable and better in avoiding mis-readings) at 4 points along each triplet of frets and note the high spots for each of the frets up the board.

The levelling beam is just a length of aluminium box section with emery cloth stuck to one side.  It acts as my straight edge as well as sanding beam.  It's always gratifying when the sanding beam filings correspond with the previously measured high spots!  :D

I then use the two diamond sharpening stones for more localised work - if you have one or two particularly high high-spots, you can end up inadvertently sanding frets that don't need it while you are taking down those particular high spots.  It's better to file the high spot down and then level out the minor variances.

Double checked with the rocker and next job is recrowning the tops of the frets that have been affected.

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