This Gosh Dern Fretboard!

[Ledzendrix1128]

So, i glue on an ebony fretboard to my bass, checked it over twice, went out for the night. I was happy knowing that the next morning id have a nice fret board on the bass finally. But nope, i came home in the morning, looked at it... seemless joints, but over night a clamp slid out of line, so at the nut, it was offline with the neck by about 1/8". BTW, this FB is preslotted and pre radiused. So i melted it off with an iron and scraped off all the dried glue, and took it into woodshop. This time i used wood clamps instead of C clamps. I spread the glue onto the neck again, and re glued the fret board. FINALLY!! a clean job, perfectly online, and all the clamps were sturdy and had no chance of moving. But I made the mistake of not using a caul with the radius. The water based glue supposedly made the fret board cup, and now it looks like there is a radius in the opposite direction. (Of course, i took the fretboard off, and in my rage cut my hands numerous times. I didnt pay attention to where the iron was either and have many burns on them). But oh well, heres my question, my shop teacher seems to think we could still save the fret board by putting 2 hardwood rails on the edges of the fretboard and clamping it that way, and sort of bending it back. He seems to think this will work, and i waited so long for LMII to send me this fretboard, so i really dont want to have to order a new one. I plan on truing the radius up with a radius block too after i glue it. So i think this should be a decent fix, let me know if you guys see any trouble ahead. Thanks again

- Louis

[thegarehanman]

You run a risk of cracking that ebony if you make it do anything it doesn't want to without steaming it first. How long did lmii take to ship you the board? I think it took them about 5 business days to get my order to me the last time I bought from them.

[Setch]

If the heat the board with a hot domestic iron, annd plenty of steam, you can then clamp it to a flat board and allow it to cool and dry out. This should remove the worst of the cupping.

In future, clamp the fretboard in place, and drill a hole through a couple of fret slots, going a couple of millimetres into the neck. Use a cocktail stick through these holes to keep the board aligned during glueup. Otherwise, the board is guaranteed to slip.

[Guitarfrenzy]

If the heat the board with a hot domestic iron, annd plenty of steam, you can then clamp it to a flat board and allow it to cool and dry out. This should remove the worst of the cupping.

In future, clamp the fretboard in place, and drill a hole through a couple of fret slots, going a couple of millimetres into the neck. Use a cocktail stick through these holes to keep the board aligned during glueup. Otherwise, the board is guaranteed to slip.

Listen to Setch on this, he knows what he's talking about. You see, if you use the steam method your reintroducing the wood to moisture again at a high level, so you should have let it dried out again over a period of months before you glued the fingerboard back on. I had a similiar problem one time, and I just reglued the neck on, but what happened is that when I finished the guitar about two months later the wood I noticed the neck had a blue streak appear in the wood. Ironically it was at the top part of the maple where it meets the fingerboard, and in the location that received the most steam. We'll you can guess what caused it because it wasn't there before. Moisture!! And remember that's why you buy kiln dried wood in the first place, so be cautious about reusing wood that has been steamed.

There are various methods I'll use when gluing on the fretboard to keep it from sliding, which can be a bad problem if you don't know how to keep it from happening. You can do like Setch said, or I've used these methods successfully before also:

- Route the back of your fingerboard so that you leave a small amount of wood sticking out in the middle that will slot down into the truss slot hole. This will guarantee no movement will gluing, and a similar method that Taylor guitars uses.

- Drill out three small holes on the neck wood, and back of fingerboard using a template to keep them perfectly in place. Use the correct size dowel and cut them so that you can glue them into the back of the fingerboard holes. Now when you get ready to glue up, you align the holes and this will also guarantee no movement. I've seen quite a bit of people use this method, including Ron Thorn, check out this picture to get a better idea of it. Thorn Fingerboard

Good luck..

[Mattia]

Well....ish. If my understanding of wood drying is correct, getting a wood dry and ready to build with is one thing (it's about cellular breakdown as the water in the cells is freed up, wood changes structure when it does this), and wetting wood to get it to move is another; the water comes out much more easily the second way, which is why you can wet guitar sides, steam bend them, and they'll be perfectly dry and stable again within a very short time. Use too much water, and things cup, because wood still absorbs water and all that, but it doesn't hold the water the same way it did when it was alive.

I think, anyway. Bottom line: bit of water's not going to undo years of air drying and require more years or months of it, particularly if you steam most of it out immediately. Just needs to dry out normally, give it a few days, unless you literally soaked the stuff or something.

[blazingblake]

One method i've heard of to prevent your problem is to attach 2 staples one I think where the first fret will be and the other where the 15'th will be snip off the horizontal part the connects the 2 sides that way it's like 2 pins sticking up, and then glue fretboard on no slpiipage problem then.

[Mickguard]

Arg...!

I just took my neck out of the clamps...the fretboard shifted by about half a millimeter. I'd used nails to hold in it place (there's extra wood at the top and the bottom that will be sanded away, so the holes will disappear) and an 18" radius block and about 10 clamps....And I checked things to make sure they were still lined up before I left. And it slipped anyway!

I'm guessing I didn't drive the nails in deep enough --or maybe the metal is more slippery? Next time I'll try toothpicks and I'll sink them deeper. (The big tip I got from this thread is that I should have clamped the fretboard to the neck before making the holes. What I'd done was drill the holes in the fretboard first, then push the nails in)

So now I have to take it off and try again.

I'm a little worried that the fretboard won't be perfectly flat on the bottom anymore though --especially after I get done removing the old glue.

Don't want to ditch the neck...I actually managed to get the radius pretty good...and my dots came out pretty straight this time too.

[Optmstkilr]

MA that fretboards got to be looking like an old piece of shoe leather. Were you able to use it again? Im interested because I steamed one and removed and I thought my life was coming to an end!

[six_stringer]

I position and clamp the fretboard down to the neck and then drill two holes between the fret slots. One of the holes is at the upper left of the FB and the other at the lower right. I remove the clamps, apply glue and insert a metal paperclip in each hole. Make sure the paperclips fit snug before applying any glue. I haven't had any trouble removing the paperclips and my fretboards stay in place. Some people use the shank of small drill bits in place of paperclips.