Crack developing in end of fretless ebony fingerboard on Essence 5

[tomhug]

I purchased this Essence in April of 2016.



Today was its first full cleaning and annual lemon oil treatment. Noticed this crack at the end of the fingerboard.






I don't know if the crack is new, or has been there for a while. I don't know if it's stable or growing. Now that I know about it, I'll be keeping an eye on it. Didn't notice it when I first looked the bass over. I've been playing this instrument weekly, but I don't spend much time on that "dusty" end of the fingerboard. 

How worried should I be?

Should I do anything about it?

Tom

[StephenR]

Really easy to fix this with some ebony dust and glue. The linked article shows how to fix a crack on a fretted instrument. Since you have no frets it is even easier. You should fix it so it doesn't get worse and then keep the fingerboard oiled so you don't get any additional cracks in the future.

http://avhguitarrepair.com/repair-blog/fingerboard-crack-repairs/

There was a recent thread here about oiling your fingerboard which you may find helpful.

http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=22452.0

[mica]

You need to glue! Superglue at least, you want to arrest the crack from growing further. If it makes you feel better, you can mix in a little Ebony dust or a thin Ebony shaving, but the glue is what will do the job.

Cracks are most likely to start at the end of the fingerboard, so it's a good idea to check there, especially when oiling to get them when they are small. This one is small enough that when I asked James he said he'd be inclined to use the glue alone.

[tomhug]

Thanks for the replies. Good advice.

Mica, do you (or James) recommend any particular viscosity superglue? I understand if ebony dust is involved, the lower viscosity stuff is needed to work through the wood dust. But for just a glue-based repair, is regular superglue OK?

I'm also inclined to use glue alone - I'm primarily concerned with structural integrity. It is a small and not terribly deep crack.

I'm also inclined not to sand the entire board once the glue is set - just do a very targeted spot sanding as is demonstrated in the link StephenR sent. Any cautions there?

Thanks,

Tom

(Side note: I literally had drummers giving me "high fives" for the way this Essence sounded and the way I was playing it last time I played out.)

[mica]

Regular is fine, and you can spot sand. Try not to use too much glue, then you won't have to sand extra off. You can transfer the glue drop by drop on a toothpick or similar.

[gtrguy]

Beautiful bass and nice photography! I have used my air compressor with a nozzle to sometimes force slower dry glue into cracks on instruments before. It works well at that. I have not tried it with superglue though.

[tomhug]

Thanks!

I actually positioned the bass upside-down (i.e. headstock towards the ground) to apply the glue, so gravity would help it flow into the crack. That way I was also able to let a bead of superglue sit on "top" of the end of the fingerboard.



I let it cure for 24 hours, then scraped and sanded.


This board was thirsty. I've never had an ebony board soak up as much oil as this one did.



Probably 6 applications yesterday, and another 4 today. - Just a thin layer, but the oil disappeared after about 15 minutes.

I did have one mishap with the razor blade I was using to scrape the excess glue off. You can see the blade jittered across the board. It looks WAY worse in the photo than in real life. It's not perceptible. I don't like to mar my basses carelessly, and I wince a little posting this in photo form. However, this will disappear the first time I have the board sanded - if I ever do. I could probably even spot sand more to hide it, but I'm primarily concerned with playability and most especially stabilizing the crack.


Thank you Mica and StephenR for the links and information! I'm going to try a set of D'Addario Ground Wounds now that this repair is complete.