Having issues with gluing on a pre-radiused fretboard.
It’s an American cherry neck with a QS maple fretboard and traditional single-action rod. We’re using Titebond 1 and are jigging up the neck to produce a slight forward bow, to compensate for the Titebond’s water saturation during the fretboard glue-up process. Also, the fretboard is prefinished prior to slotting/glue-up and is absolutely flat.
Anyhow, the fretboard goes on fine, is allowed to dry over night, then removed from the jig and it looks great - just a slight forward bow after allowing to rest for several days. Next, we bump in the frets and do a fret level, then allow it to rest again. Well, after a month or so, the neck changes from a slight forward bow into a slight back-bow… We’ve done two necks this way and both ended up with back-bow, even though they still had a slight forward-bow right after fretting. 24.5 scale length with 9’s doesn’t create enough pull to correct the back-bow.
Q’s:
1. Would pressing in the frets BEFORE fretboard glue-up produce different results?
2. Or should we mill relief into the neck itself – to mimic forward-bow? We could do that, but would rather not because we use a jig to mill the neck/back contour. I could, however, easily add relief to the fretboard. Anyone do that?
3. Or should we pre-saturate the neck/fretboard surfaces with Titebond and allow them to dry, then re-sand flat prior to gluing on the fretboard – to reduce water absorption?
4. Or would switching to waterproof Ritchlite eliminate the back-bow issue?
Notes:
1. Would rather keep the traditional rod, because we already have the construction method down and prefer the single rod over double-action.
2. Would rather use Titebond, to allow fretboard removal if ever necessary.
3. Would rather radius the fretboard prior to glue-up because we use special jigs to produce compound radiused boards – no radius blocks used.
4. The issue we have with using epoxy is that it’s like adding a plastic sheet in-between the neck/fretboard, and is permanent.
If anyone knows how to consistently eliminate back-bow, please share.
Fretboard Glueup
in Solidbody Guitar and Bass Chat
Posted
Hi all,
Having issues with gluing on a pre-radiused fretboard.
It’s an American cherry neck with a QS maple fretboard and traditional single-action rod. We’re using Titebond 1 and are jigging up the neck to produce a slight forward bow, to compensate for the Titebond’s water saturation during the fretboard glue-up process. Also, the fretboard is prefinished prior to slotting/glue-up and is absolutely flat.
Anyhow, the fretboard goes on fine, is allowed to dry over night, then removed from the jig and it looks great - just a slight forward bow after allowing to rest for several days. Next, we bump in the frets and do a fret level, then allow it to rest again. Well, after a month or so, the neck changes from a slight forward bow into a slight back-bow… We’ve done two necks this way and both ended up with back-bow, even though they still had a slight forward-bow right after fretting. 24.5 scale length with 9’s doesn’t create enough pull to correct the back-bow.
Q’s:
1. Would pressing in the frets BEFORE fretboard glue-up produce different results?
2. Or should we mill relief into the neck itself – to mimic forward-bow? We could do that, but would rather not because we use a jig to mill the neck/back contour. I could, however, easily add relief to the fretboard. Anyone do that?
3. Or should we pre-saturate the neck/fretboard surfaces with Titebond and allow them to dry, then re-sand flat prior to gluing on the fretboard – to reduce water absorption?
4. Or would switching to waterproof Ritchlite eliminate the back-bow issue?
Notes:
1. Would rather keep the traditional rod, because we already have the construction method down and prefer the single rod over double-action.
2. Would rather use Titebond, to allow fretboard removal if ever necessary.
3. Would rather radius the fretboard prior to glue-up because we use special jigs to produce compound radiused boards – no radius blocks used.
4. The issue we have with using epoxy is that it’s like adding a plastic sheet in-between the neck/fretboard, and is permanent.
If anyone knows how to consistently eliminate back-bow, please share.
Thanks in advance.