Chips from refretting

[mcbmoreno]

I just attempted my first defret for a refretting I am going to do. It went pretty well but I did get some chips on the fret board. What should I use to fill in the chips? Also is it possible not to get any chips or do you always get some?

Thanks,

Mike

[StratDudeDan]

i had the same problem, but when they chipped out, it was almost like they "peeled" out, so i could just take the piece that fell off and glue it back on.

[mcbmoreno]

I was able to do that on some of them but lost some of the pieces too.

[Southpa]

You could try mixing some rosewood (or whatever your fretboard is made of) dust with hard setting glue, pack it in and smooth out afterwards. Gotta be careful when pulling frets. If they tend to be difficult I heat them up a little with a soldering iron in case there is old glue holding them down. A good fret puller is a set of end nippers with the end ground flat.

[rhoads56]

You really need the correct type of pullers, as this will eliminate 99% of chips. The ones from stewmac are great FRETTING PLIERS

Other than that, fill the chips with the original pieces if possible, or make up the "dust and glue" fillers. Do this before you put the new frets in. Make sure you level the board.

[newbiejon]

I did my first de fret on my bass last week and i found the best solution to get rid of chips was to sand the fret board down, granted i thought my neck was too thick and it had some crappy finish on it so i wanted to sand it down anyway and ended up planing and scraping and everything else but it definately gets rid of those chips

Jon

[Guitarfrenzy]

I did my first de fret on my bass last week and i found the best solution to get rid of chips was to sand the fret board down, granted i thought my neck was too thick and it had some crappy finish on it so i wanted to sand it down anyway and ended up planing and scraping and everything else but it definately gets rid of those chips

Jon

That will work, but there are two reasons you shouldn't sand any more than you need to get the fretboard level.

1. You have effectively made the neck thinner by some amount which isn't always a good thing.

2. If your working with a bass or guitar with inlays, you might sand all the way through them which could mean a disaster if your working on a guitar that has some special fancy inlay work.

That's why you really need to watch what your doing when pulling frets, just to make sure you have bare minimal tearout of the wood. Like others have suggested you'll want to use a good soldiering iron with the tip having a special slot filed into it that will let you heat up the whole width of the fret while moving across it. Use some good fret pullers and start slowly as you heat up the fret, pull out a small amount at a time while moving the soldier gun across the fret, and coming behind it with the fret puller. That should leave you with very little chips and wood tearout. The only other advice I have that hasn't been suggested yet is that you use some small strips of teflon to put into the fret slot in order to keep the glue from running into it. The teflon will easily pull out of the slot after the chips have been glued.

[mcbmoreno]

Thanks for all the advice. Ill give the rosewood dust and glue a shot. I used a crappy pair of fret pullers when I pulled the frets out. Thats probably why I got so many chips.