# Replacing a guitar's fretboard - yes, it can be done!



## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

Not a lot of people realize that a fretboard can be replaced on a guitar. There are many reasons why you would want to consider doing something like this, some of which are:

- The neck has developed a bad hump at the neck joint and sanding the fretboard down would make the board too thin. 
- You've had the neck refretted a couple of times and the fret slots are done. 
- You don't like the board that's on there
- A guitar tech ruined the board with a bad refret job (yes, it happens)
- The fretboard has delaminated from the neck shaft (yes, this also happens)

I've changed guitar fretboards a couple of times and this time, I did it mostly for cosmetic reasons and I also bought some ebony for the 1st time in almost 10 years. I added a blog entry about it on here. I hope you enjoy it. If there's enough interest, the next time I replace a fretboard, I'll detail the process and post it on this board

http://www.lydian.ca/Blog/Entries/2013/8/17_Replacing_a_fretboard.html

BEFORE:









AFTER:









I also included a little snippet about the use of ebony.


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## Jim DaddyO (Mar 20, 2009)

Cool, thanks for sharing!


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

LydianGuitars...Thanks !!

Enjoyed reading your blogs and learned from them.

Cheers

Dave


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## -ST- (Feb 2, 2008)

Hi LydianGuitars,

Thanks for opening my eyes to another aspect of guitars. How long did it take to do the whole job: 
 remove the old fretboard (60-90 minutes in your blog)
 prepare the neck for the new fretboard
 install the new fretboard
 anything else it took to make the guitar playable


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## Clean Channel (Apr 18, 2011)

Wow, nice job!


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

-ST- said:


> Hi LydianGuitars,
> 
> Thanks for opening my eyes to another aspect of guitars. How long did it take to do the whole job:
> remove the old fretboard (60-90 minutes in your blog)
> ...


Preparing the ebony board, including slotting it is about 40mins.
Preparing the neck for the new board is about 10 mins.
Glueing the new board is about 30mins (includes clean up after)
Inlays, including side dots are another hour
Radiusing and levelling is an hour
Fretting and adjustments is 1.5 to 2 hours.
Finishing and blending in is about 30 mins. It took longer on this guitar because of the stained neck shaft.
Install the neck, restring, tune, intonate is another 30 mins.
Adjusting a pre-cut nut is another 20mins.

Its is labour intensive but totally worth it IMO.


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

How about a neck with binding on it?

I've got a 65ish Vox Electric 12 string with a neck that's been redressed so many times they actually cut away a bunch of the board to get more fret exposed. It's a mess (I bought it that way) (for cheap). The binding has scared me off from giving it a new fret board. Never done one with binding.
On ebay right now there is a neck for sale, same guitar, same neck, but frets in good shape. There's a catch of course, the neck is split length-wise almost all the way down. Would it be possible to peel the fret board off both necks and attach the good fret board to the sound neck without disturbing the binding job?


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## Jim DaddyO (Mar 20, 2009)

Do you use hide glue or something like tightbond 1?


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

Jim DaddyO said:


> Do you use hide glue or something like tightbond 1?


I've been using Lepage's Carpenter's glue for years. I did try the Titebond 1 and its essentially the same. You can get the Lepage almost everywhere.


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

Lincoln said:


> How about a neck with binding on it?
> 
> I've got a 65ish Vox Electric 12 string with a neck that's been redressed so many times they actually cut away a bunch of the board to get more fret exposed. It's a mess (I bought it that way) (for cheap). The binding has scared me off from giving it a new fret board. Never done one with binding.
> On ebay right now there is a neck for sale, same guitar, same neck, but frets in good shape. There's a catch of course, the neck is split length-wise almost all the way down. Would it be possible to peel the fret board off both necks and attach the good fret board to the sound neck without disturbing the binding job?


The method for replacing a fretboard with binding is pretty much the same. There are two ways to do the fretboard glue up.

1- Glue the fretboard to the neck shaft with the binding already attached, then scrape off excess binding when the fretboard has set.
2- Glue the fretboard without the binding and attach the binding later and scrape off excess binding.

I prefer option 1 because it will give you a neater result, especially in terms of glue squeeze out. 

I would not peel off a fretboard in the hopes of saving it. It would be very difficult to not damage it. If you're lucky enough to salvage it and the binding is ABS or some other plastic, it will have been damaged by the heat used to remove the fretboard, so you'd have to redo the binding. Also, the glue joint would not be the best because the fretboard will have likely warped from the heat and humidity used to peel it off and you'll have to fix that before regluing it. 

The best option is to put a new, fresh board, with NEW frets. I use stainless steel frets. They are soooo smooth, its like playing on glass. The other plus with stainless steel is that it will not wear out like regular nickel/steel frets. I use Jescar fretwire http://www.jescar.com/


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

LydianGuitars said:


> The method for replacing a fretboard with binding is pretty much the same. There are two ways to do the fretboard glue up.
> 
> 1- Glue the fretboard to the neck shaft with the binding already attached, then scrape off excess binding when the fretboard has set.
> 2- Glue the fretboard without the binding and attach the binding later and scrape off excess binding.
> ...


thanks for the reply. I'll give up on that notion and practice up on my neck binding skills instead.


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## -ST- (Feb 2, 2008)

Hi LydianGuitars,



LydianGuitars said:


> Preparing the ebony board, including slotting it is about 40mins.
> Preparing the neck for the new board is about 10 mins.
> Glueing the new board is about 30mins (includes clean up after)
> Inlays, including side dots are another hour
> ...


Okay - to me this looks like at least 3 to 10 times the durations you gave. That does not include the time it would take to get new components for the things that I'd ruin in the process.

Thank you (no sarcasm) for the insight. I have better understanding of what I'd be asking if I approached someone to do this for me.


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## Guest (Aug 18, 2013)

LydianGuitars said:


> I would not peel off a fretboard in the hopes of saving it. It would be very difficult to not damage it. If you're lucky enough to salvage it and the binding is ABS or some other plastic, it will have been damaged by the heat used to remove the fretboard, so you'd have to redo the binding. Also, the glue joint would not be the best because the fretboard will have likely warped from the heat and humidity used to peel it off and you'll have to fix that before regluing it.


I had to replace the truss rod on one of my LP's.
To avoid the problems that you raise. I heated up
a butter knife and worked it down the neck. Very
minimal bend in the board. After cleaning the old
glue off, it went back on perfectly.


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

laristotle said:


> I had to replace the truss rod on one of my LP's.
> To avoid the problems that you raise. I heated up
> a butter knife and worked it down the neck. Very
> minimal bend in the board. After cleaning the old
> glue off, it went back on perfectly.


I never said it was impossible... just that I wouldn't count on everything working out. 

The problem with cleaning the old glue off is that the wood pores are still filled with some of the old glue. For optimal performance, you need fresh and clean wood surfaces. In terms of warping, that ineviable with the heat and humidity, but you can minimize that by leaving the frets on, re-humidifying the board and clamping it over a flat surface until it thoroughly dries.


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## YJMUJRSRV (Jul 17, 2007)

gone fishing


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

YJMUJRSRV said:


> I bet you'll change your mind on this. I don't allow stainless in the shop anymore. Not only will they kill diamond files but they sound like someone is crinkling aluminum foil in the background as the guitar is played.


SS frets are harder to install but totally worth the extra effort IMO. I've been doing SS frets for over 2 years and I'm not going back.

In terms of tone, if you're having problems with them, I would suspect a bad install, a badly setup neck or something else being wrong.


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