ruined fretboard?? advice

[hittitewarrior]

Hello all... I'm seeking the counsel of you all again on what may be something not worth recovering from...

I purchased and have been saving this beautiful piece of tiger myrtlewood that was sold as a fretboard by a reputable wood supplier for guitar making... I am not blaming them in any way shape or form for selling it as a fretboard, but after trying to seat the first fret using my drill press (using a fret press attachment), I am wondering if the wood is far too soft.  It may be "fine" assuming I seated the frets in a more gentle way... but I did not for this first one.  So here are the pictures of the issue, and I'm looking for advice on two things... 1) do you all see a way to salvage this? 2) if the wood is too soft, are there other issues I will have in the future (assuming I can get the frets in at all...).

 

in the above picture, you can see a little tear out of the wood that occurred as I pressed the fret into the slot. The first fret I tried rotated and bent a little, denting the wood and creating that tear out.  The images here are of the second attempt (new piece of fretwire), pressed more lightly...

I've considered flooding the fret slot with CA, clamping it and seeing what happens... then progressing through the rest of the frets with a much lighter touch.

I thought maybe flooding all slots with CA first as a hardener, and then going back to clean up the slots, and then try pressing?

I thought maybe I should try to create "inserts" at each fret using a harder wood, and then figure out how to slot that (not sure how I would do that in a way that was precise enough... I normally use a template and cut slots on my table saw).

And of course, I am afraid this is a bad idea overall at this point, and abandoning is the only suitable course of action.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and advice.

Edited October 30, 2021 by hittitewarrior
updated content

[Bizman62]

By "tiger myrtlewood" I suppose you mean Oregon Myrtle which actually belongs to the Laurel family. If so, the Janka hardness of it is similar to hard maple and about half of that of rosewood. Looking at the pictures it looks like there may be some softer spots. As maple is used for fretboards that myrtlewood should in theory do. Then again, maple fretboards are usually lacquered which hardens the surface.

One option might be to flood the entire fretboard with low viscosity CA glue. It should give the fretboard the required durability. You can do that after putting the frets in so you don't have to recut the slots. The glue should be quite easy to remove from the fret wire.

What caught my eye is that the ends of the frets aren't as tight as the center.  Do the frets have a larger radius than the fretboard or worse, are they straight? Optimally they should have a tighter radius than the fingerboard so that when you push them in, the ends would slide sideways inside the slot to ensure a tight fit.

[hittitewarrior]

@Bizman62 - thank you for the advice

I believe it is Tasmanian Myrtle? - https://www.wood-database.com/tasmanian-myrtle/

The frets are pre-bent to be the "same" radius as the fretboard (10").  I should be going to something like 12"? Good to know - thank you! 

Part of the problem (at least in the first picture) is when I changed the position of the fret press to be more over the end of the fret, it "crushed" the wood (resulting in that tear out, and what looks like a little bit of a divot now in the fretboard (and that tearing immediately adjacent to it).  I'm afraid I'll end up with a low spot when it's time to level the fretboard.  Perhaps not low enough to cause an issue?

For putting the rest of the frets in, your advice would be to pre-bend the radius further, and just be careful to not be heavy handed when pressing?

[Bizman62]

2 minutes ago, hittitewarrior said:

The frets are pre-bent to be the "same" radius as the fretboard (10").  I should be going to something like 12"?

If your fretboard is 10" your frets should be something like 8" so the ends would be hitting the fretboard first and the centre would follow.

The tasmanian myrtle is a bit harder than oregon but still in the same ballpark.

You can level the frets quite a lot, they're taller than it seems. As you know they can be recrowned several times so I guess the maximum to level off is about half of the height of the fret. Most likely you aren't pushing that hard! So yes, tighten the radius and use moderate power.

[curtisa]

1 hour ago, hittitewarrior said:

I believe it is Tasmanian Myrtle? - https://www.wood-database.com/tasmanian-myrtle/

Then I'd suggest it's too soft to be used reliably as a fretboard - sorry

The 'tiger' bit of tiger myrtle is a kind of fungal attack that happens to the tree as it grows, not unlike spalted maple. It's quite a striking visual effect to look at, but IME it leaves the timber much softer than normal. A clear piece of Tas myrtle is not dissimilar to maple in terms of strength and hardness, but the tiger variant needs to be used more carefully and selectively.

You could possibly try flooding the whole fretboard with some kind of hardening agent (maybe CA or water thin epoxy?) but it's going to be messy and a bit of a stab in the dark as to whether it will work successfully. Do you have any offcuts you can experiment with?

[Muzz]

Fretboards made out of softer wood will still grab a fret as long as the slot is cut well, It looks like you have cut your slots without a jig, the third photo shows a slot about 30 degrees off angle, and that kind of wobble can also make the slots too wide to grab the fret. There is a solution, fill any off right angle slots with veneer and recut. Then use fret wire pieces with about 1 cm overhang each side. put epoxy on the tangs and in the slot, put in each fret and put elastic bands around the overhanging ends and tightly around the back of the neck to hold them in place until the glue sets. Good luck with it.

[curtisa]

A softer board might initially grab a fret OK, but it's unlikely to hold it properly under regular playing conditions or seasonal changes. There's a good chance the frets may start lifting and getting high spots after a year or two of playing. The other thing I'd be concerned about is the way a softer board will wear in between each fret from finger pressure pushing the strings against the timber.

[Drak]

6 hours ago, hittitewarrior said:

I purchased and have been saving this beautiful piece of tiger myrtlewood that was sold as a fretboard by a reputable wood supplier for guitar making... I am not blaming them in any way shape or form for selling it as a fretboard, but after trying to seat the first fret using my drill press (using a fret press attachment), I am wondering if the wood is far too soft

Good that you are shouldering the responsibility. Awesome-sauce. Once you shoulder the responsibility, if there was a fault made, then you can make the proper adjustments next time to correct for it. You see, anyone can say anything they want about wood (or anything else) but they didn't twist your arm to make you buy the thing, you bought it using your brain and your common sense and your intuition that you could make that piece of wood 'work'. Let's say that Tigerwood isn't commonly used for fretboards, but an experienced luthier who's built dozens and dozens of necks could easily pull it off, no problem, because they have the experience to know what they'll need to pay attention to.

Someone newer, just sticking their toe in the deep waters of experience, would probably do better sticking to tried and true (and sometimes boring looking) traditional woods. I can't say if it is the case here, but over the years I've seen it happen dozens and dozens of times over. Someone spends big dollars on pornographic-looking sexy exotic woods with very little experience and know-how.

If anything happens, there's no room to relax and say 'WTF' and let it roll right down the back, throw it away, and try again. They've invested big, they have very little experience, and so this makes for an ugly scenario to play itself out. Its not a balanced situation, its very unbalanced, and so probable cause/universal law says something will probably go wrong. When it does, there's no room to just blow it off and try again...and again...and again...and again, like most guys do.

When someone spends the big bucks with little experience, he doesn't have the room to say 'WTF' and let it roll off his back.

He wants to get pissed off and point fingers, never understanding he waded into the deep waters and that's on him and hpefully he learns by the experience to judge the next time better. That's how we learn, we all make mistakes like that, I certainly have, many times, but I always learned and the next attempt I was smarter.

So, good on you for not being 'that guy'.

 

[hittitewarrior]

Thank you all.   This is certainly a learning experience.

I went ahead and wicked CA from the ends, and lightly clamped it using my aluminum sanding caul.  Hopefully that gets things to sit mostly level, and start hardening stuff up.  I will then flood with CA or epoxy and see what happens.  This is a guitar for me, so if it fails after time, I'll be bummed (pissed?), but at least it is not going to affect someone else...

I may start a second neck of similar dimensions now... bleh.

Curious on something that @Muzz said, and how you all do this.  When it comes to fretboard slotting, I use my table saw and a template to create the fret slots.  I then radius the fretboard, glue it to the neck, trim the width, and come back with a fret saw with a depth stop, and manually (no jig) deepen the slots to the right depth.  I'm open to suggestions on a better order of operations.  

Thank you all for the input.  Love this forum, and appreciate all the insights.

 

[hittitewarrior]

4 minutes ago, Drak said:

Good that you are shouldering the responsibility. Awesome-sauce. ......

So, good on you for not being 'that guy'.

 

Thanks.  I love the place I got it, they are top quality in every way..  Someone gave me a birthday present/gift card, so I went for the exotic thing that called to me :)... little did I know I'd get lessons as part of the birthday present. Ha!  As I said above, really appreciate all the willing members who chime in with their experience so freely.  IME, this forum has always been a top notch example of what forums SHOULD be in my mind.

Bocote has been my typical jam because it's a real nice hardwood that's pretty forgiving, relatively cheap in the world of the "boring" alternatives.  I found out I'm allergic to that stuff... nasty rash when the dust gets on me.  So now I'm looking for something new.

Anyways, I appreciate your point, and it will make me think twice before jumping in the deep end quite so quickly in the future.

[Drak]

5 hours ago, hittitewarrior said:

it will make me think twice before jumping in the deep end quite so quickly in the future

Actually, I personally have no problem jumping straight off the cliff face with no backup most days.

I like that, I like just 'going for it' a lot of times (not all the time tho, I do plan most functions pretty precisely)

Sometimes I take off and soar like an Eagle, sometimes I smash my face straight on the rocks below.

Life isn't worth living without some risk every once in awhile. But it's MY risk, I own the risk, I don't assign it to anyone else but me.

I assess the risk level before I 'do the thing' and am totally willing to lose it all if that's what happens.

My point was more about properly honestly assessing the risk level before money changes hands.

And if it all goes down in a ball of gasoline and flames, you have the emotional insurance on-hand to just laugh it off and do it all over again.

That's a balanced way to go about it, you either play it safe and always win, or you're prepared to eat the loss without batting an eyelash about it.