Crack In Fingerboard

[Xanthus]

So I go downstairs today to do final touching ups on the guitar. With any luck, I could have had the first round of clear on it tomorrow. I was taking some 4,000 and breaking the lip where the paint gathered over the tape, getting the scratch pattern as even as I could (can never be too careful, I've never clear-coated anything before), and was going to start on the neck when I said "Huh... that's odd."

Why can I feel the fret tangs sticking out of the side of the fretboard? *Checks the entire fretboard; explodes with violent profanity*

So close to done... So damn close...

So upon further inspection, I come across this:

http://public.fotki.com/Xanthus/build_1/1006869.html

A crack the entire way through the fingerboard. The pic is a bit blurry, but I'm no photographer. I'm apparently no guitar builder either, but that's another story. Yep, the crack is nice and solid, all the way through the fingerboard, starting at the edge, and going through frets 24-21. At each fret position, though, the crack is in a slightly different place, so it's not a perfectly straight line. It's kinda jagged, like steps, getting close to the high E side of the fretboard each time.

What the ****? How could this happen? I'm working down in a heated basement. My bench is right next to the furnace, for crying out loud! It's not like there are severe weather changes... Wait, I like in New England. Strike that. Anyways, heated basement, I've been down there all hours of the day and night, and never have I noticed a time when it was colder, hotter, drier, or anything, perhaps just in the peak of summer, but that's long since past.

Well... I don't really care so much about HOW it happened, more like what I should do about it. I've heard that ebony is subject to seasonal changes, but A. this happened over the course of like... 4 days, max, and B. the wood should be cured before putting it into construction! Right?

I dunno if this is Carvin's fault or what. Part of me says that if the wood was properly cured/cured long enough, this crazy-ass drying shouldn't happen. I'm thinking of sending them an e-mail, but I dunno what to say in it. Hi, here's my guitar, attach a GOOD ebony fretboard on it, free of charge? Hi, how can I repair what I'm assuming is not reversible? I'll be damned if I have to go out, buy a hammer, fretwire, and a fretboard, hammer myself up a board, then run the risk of #&$^ing up my guitar after I've come all this way.

HELP PLEASE! Anyone got any advice?

[guitar2005]

What the ****? How could this happen? I'm working down in a heated basement. My bench is right next to the furnace

I dunno if this is Carvin's fault or what. Part of me says that if the wood was properly cured/cured long enough, this crazy-ass drying shouldn't happen. I'm thinking of sending them an e-mail, but I dunno what to say in it. Hi, here's my guitar, attach a GOOD ebony fretboard on it, free of charge? Hi, how can I repair what I'm assuming is not reversible? I'll be damned if I have to go out, buy a hammer, fretwire, and a fretboard, hammer myself up a board, then run the risk of #&$^ing up my guitar after I've come all this way.

For the first two questions... you answered them yourself. Never place a guitar next to a furnace.

As for the crack, Ebony need to be oiled more frequently than other woods. Every time I change strings, I oil the fingerboard.

To fix it, simply run some thin CA glue in the crack and you shouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

[Mattia]

1) Furnace bad.

2) Ebony requiring oil is patent bull.

I've never oiled any of my fingerboards, and they're perfectly fine. Many old Martin acoustics have never had a fingerboard oiled, and they're often doing great. I don't feel the need to, because they look good, play nicely, and certainly aren't getting 'too dry' (what, we say woods should 'season' and 'dry' for decades if possible, praise 'old wood', and then say it'll 'dry out' once it gets put into service? Nonsense). Only time I'd bother with a quick application of fingerboard oil (not a drying finishing oil) is after a very vigorous cleaning with mineral spirits or naphta, which can strip oily woods (rosewoods; ebony's not really oily) of their oils. It's not that oiling a fingerboard is going to ruin it, and it can make it look nice, but it certainly isn't required.

Thing about Ebony: it's pretty unstable. Needs a long, long time to dry fully, and is more likely than any of the rosewoods to keep shrinking if it's not quite old enough to be used yet.

[Xanthus]

Huh... furnace bad, you say. I could have sworn furnace good. What with the constant temperature and all.

Shows what I know

So the cracking is definitely my fault, then. No sense in trying to wrangle a new fingerboard out of Carvin, drats. Now I know never to work on a guitar for an extended period of time in my basement!

I'll try the CA glue, guitar2005, but what about the fret tangs scratching my poor little hands? Will the ebony expand back out to cover the frets again? I don't think so. Maybe I should try filing them down? No doubt I'd have to re-stain the fingerboard black after that procedure. Man, could I go for a nice bound fretboard I wouldn't have this problem!

As an aside question: Why is it that we don't throw a quick coat of lacquer on rose/ebony fretboards? Because they're too porous? I wonder if this would have happened had there been clear over the fretboard.

[westhemann]

let's not be too hasty....before blaming it on the heat(which it very well may be),did you install carbon fibre rods?

because i had the exact same thing happen a while back from not having the carbon rods deepo enough,they were pushing the fretboard up in the middle,and it cracked...

it could also happen if your truss rod was not installed to the right depth.

okay...warning......make SURE to completely flush out the carbon rods and glue them in and let them dry before glueing on the board.

i didn't realize the glue was forcing my rods back out of the slot...and they cracked my fretboard....now i must make a new one...and i was going to taper and cut the neck today

from here

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=4599

all it takes is a fraction of a mm to do it

and by the way,the only thing that can be done in this case is to remove the board,rout the rods deeper,and reinstall a new fretboard

edit....i just saw your pics and i realize you bought rthe neck blank premade...so yeah,it's probably the furnace

[Acousticraft]

Guitars dont like heat or low humidity. If you have a sudden rise in heat and low humidity the moisture loss from the fingerboard will cause it to shrink , and as it cant shrink easily because it is glued to the neck it will stress the weakest points such as fret slots. It is always good to store and stabilise construction timbers so they settle to the same ambient humidity before gluing.

I know a local luthier who makes resonator guitars and sells them around the world and he told me he sent one with an ebony fingerboard from NZ to Australia and the fingerboard cracked badly due to change of humidity and probably heat.

If you laquer the fingerboard it will chip off in high wear areas because of the grinding action of the strings. I know this from personal experience as my acoustic with a rosewood fingerboard has done just that.

[guitar2005]

2) Ebony requiring oil is patent bull.

Works for me. Never had an Ebony board crack. Coincidence? Maybe. I like nicely cleaned and oiled fingerboards. I Use Lemon Oil.

[westhemann]

well...lemon oil is a very light oil..

but most of my guitars have ebony boards and i never oil them...never had one crack...really that is one of the strengths of ebony...low maintenence

[Xanthus]

I took another good, long, hard look at it, and only the cracks at the 24th fret and the very end of the fretboard are larger than normal, but for some reason the cracks from 21-24 simply appear larger. Now that I took a close look at the whole board, the entire piece of ebony seems dry; the grain is really opened. :-/

So I'll fill the cracks at 24+ with CA and grab some lemon oil or some such to slick up the board with.

Any advice re: what to do with the fret tangs popping out?

[Mattia]

2) Ebony requiring oil is patent bull.

Works for me. Never had an Ebony board crack. Coincidence? Maybe. I like nicely cleaned and oiled fingerboards. I Use Lemon Oil.

I don't doubt it. Oiling isn't *bad* for fingerboards, but it also isn't necessary. I've never had an ebony board crack either.

Xanthus: you can't tell how dry a board is by looking at the grain. Also, ebony doesn't have much in the way of grain. As for heat, it's not the big issue. It's better not to freeze your guitar or cook it (the glue can't take the heat, for one thing), but it's relative humidity that's more important. As for lacquering fingerboards, go ahead if you want to, but one of the reasons I don't own any maple fingerboard guitars is that I hate, hate, hate, hate the feel of lacquer under my fingers, and unlacquered ebony/rosewood looks better, too.

[Setch]

The problem with the furnace is humidity. Everytime the furnace fires up, the humidity in the house will plummet. Where will be this be most dramatic - yep, right next to it. Heated houses are the cause of nearly all humidity problems in guitars, because heating = low humidity. I don't know much about furnaces systems, but I'll take a shot in the dark and guess that the system cycles at night, so you don't burn fuel all the time people are asleep. If so, everytime the furnace cuts out, humidity will rise, every morning when it kicks in, the humidty will drop again.

The reason you can feel your fret ends is because the humidity is lower now than it was when you trimmed the fretboard. Wood always tries to equilibrate with it's environment, so when that environment is dry, the wood will loose moisture, which makes it shrink. This caused the fret ends to stick out, and then cracked the fretboard, when the combination of the frets and gluejoint to the neck stopped the fretboard moving where it wanted to.

As Mattia and Wes have said, oiling won't do a damn thing to stop this.