Author Topic: Need some help with a fretboard repair (Read 150 times)

lothartu · « **on:** May 18, 2007, 03:45:32 AM »

I just picked up an Ibanez guitar off of ebay. Everything appears to be fine except for one thing. The fretboard has started to detach from the nut down to about the 3rd,4th fret on the low E side. The high E side shows detachment only on the 1st fret so the fretboard has come off more on the low E side than the high E. I did some reading and it sounds like this can happen when the fretboard dries and begins to shrink.

The fretboard is bound and the binding appears to still be firmly attached to the side of the fretboard. I'm not sure if that info changes the repair process but I thought I should mention it.

So how do I fix this? My assumption is to somehow get glue in between the board and the neck and then clamp it. Is that correct? What kind of glue should I use?

ty in advance.

- Jim

lothartu · « **Reply #1 on:** May 18, 2007, 05:41:03 AM »

Follow Up:

After a bit more searching it sounds like liphatic resin and polyvinyl glues are what I should use. Lowe's carries the Titebond line of glues and I can get them in small 16oz or less sizes for under $10.

My assumption for the repair process is now this...

1- Clean the fretboard

2- Lemon oil the fretboard to condition it and hopefully prevent any further deformation

3- Carefully squeeze a little Titebond into the gap between the neck and fretboard. (The locking nut is already off so I have access there as well as from the side.)

4- Use scrap wood to protect the fingerboard from the clamp and then clamp the setup so that the fingerboard is pressed down on to the neck.

5- Tighten the clamp until it's good and tight and I see glue coming out of the joint.

6- Clean the glue off which has come out of the joint and see if the fretboard looks flush to the neck.

7- Don't touch anything for at least a day and then pull the clamp off and see if it's cool.

Does that sound right?

- Jim

EDIT: Titebond Type I (Original Formula) sounds like the one to use. Not the outdoor Type II and Type III versions. $2.27 at Lowe's

(Message edited by lothartu on May 18, 2007)

chuck · « **Reply #2 on:** May 18, 2007, 06:34:11 AM »

Do not oil the fingerboard before glueing as it will prevent the glue from sticking properly should any get in the cracks,also try to find a siringe of some type to inject the glue as far inside as possible then clamp down.Of course taking it to a repair shop would be your best bet.

Chuck

lothartu · « **Reply #3 on:** May 18, 2007, 09:33:34 AM »

Good tip on the oiling. I hadn't thought about that. I'll put it off until after the guitar is glued up. I knew my biggest problem was likely to be getting the glue in the right spot and something like a syringe was what I had in mind too. Unfortunately I couldn't come up with a way to get a hold of one so I improvised and it worked really well (I think.).

Instead of a syringe I used a plastic sandwich bag. Yes, I know that sounds crazy but hear me out. What I did was to take an exacto knife and poke the smallest hole possible right in the bottom corner of the sandwich bag and then I poured some glue into the bag. Then I slid the exacto knife between the neck and the fretboard and then VERY carefully pried it up a little to give me a bit more room. I slid the edge of the sandwich bag into the gap between the fretboard and the neck and then removed the exacto knife. I then slid the sandwich bag all the way down to the tightest point and started squeezing out the glue. Like how a cake decorator would fill up one of those squeeze things with frosting and then squeeze it to make the frosting come out. It worked like a charm and I was able to get glue into the whole joint where there would normally have been no way to get in there without a syringe.

The guitar is all clamped up now and the glue is setting. I'll see how it turned out when I undo the clamp tomorrow.

Thanks for all the help.

- Jim

jahnahisti · « **Reply #4 on:** May 18, 2007, 10:57:27 AM »

Here are the glue syringes, though it seems like you took care of it already.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Glues,_adhesives/Supplies:_Applicators,_syringes/Glue_Syringes.html

Be careful w/ your choice of clamps too, lots of them...even the Irwin's, can damage a finish horribly.
For glue cleanup afterwards you may need to get some polishing sandpapers to finish it off.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Finishing_supplies/Abrasives,_polishes,_buffers/Micro-Mesh_Finishing_Abrasives_Kit.html

?rian

dela217 · « **Reply #5 on:** May 18, 2007, 12:07:14 PM »

Titebond is the way to go. I glued together one of my BecVar basses that fell apart after the flooding of hurricane Katrina. It really works great! With mine the body laminations were coming apart. I worked glue in all around the edge and clamped it with some C clamps and some wood on either side of the body to allow for a wider clamping area. I think if you use Titebond on your fretboard, it will be as good as new.

Michael

cozmik_cowboy · « **Reply #6 on:** May 24, 2007, 09:36:13 PM »

Here are a couple of links to detailed instructions on how to remove and
attach a fretboard - might help some. There are all kinds of cool tutorials at the site.

Peter

dfung60 · « **Reply #7 on:** May 24, 2007, 11:31:26 PM »

As you probably were aware, the normal fix for this problem is expensive - pull the frets, pull the fretboard, plane the neck and fretboard flat, glue it back on, refret.

Glue is strong, but if the fingerboard is sprung away from the neck, then you're fighting a losing battle. Wood is a natural product and if the fingerboard happens to warp away from the piece you're joining it to then it's going to be hard to get the kind of flatness you'll need to actually play this guitar. Unless you're really lucky, you'll find that the fingerboard is low where the clamps held and will curve upward between the clamps. If the connection is solid, then you could still pull the frets, level the fretboard, then refret, but that's still expensive. A proper fix would also probably involve making a wood caul that matches the shape of the neck so you can clamp it tightly with even pressure across the entire joint you're regluing.

A failure like this could come from the fretboard drying out, but it's more likely that the wood had a natural warp in it when constructed, it might have been improperly glued, or both.

Sometimes you get the opposite warping problem. The glue joint fails because of manufacturing defect or a hot case in the trunk, and the fingerboard is sprung AGAINST the neck. When this happens, the neck might buzz or have action problems. In this case, you could try to spring the seam open and shoot some glue in. But if you're fighting the wood's shape it will be a tough battle.

Good luck,

David Fung

terryc · « **Reply #8 on:** May 25, 2007, 02:23:12 AM »

You could always buy a replacement neck, I am sure there a plenty of affordable ones out there which would do the job fine.
David is right to a tee..wood once warped is like a supermarket trolley..it has a mind of it's own when it moves.

dela217 · « **Reply #9 on:** May 25, 2007, 03:27:18 AM »

David - You are painting a grim picture for me and the restoration of my basses.

Michael

lbpesq · « **Reply #10 on:** May 25, 2007, 07:47:23 AM »

Terry:

Supermarket Trolley?

Bill, tgo

terryc · « **Reply #11 on:** May 25, 2007, 08:07:15 AM »

Bill..you know when the wheels are shot, you push it forward and it goes sideways!!!!

lbpesq · « **Reply #12 on:** May 25, 2007, 08:32:24 AM »

Oh, I get it. Over here they are called shopping carts except among the severely economically disadvantaged, in which case they are called home.

Bill, tgo

dfung60 · « **Reply #13 on:** May 26, 2007, 12:53:44 AM »

Michael (dela217)-

I'm not intentionally trying to bum you out, but water and wood are generally not a great mix.

I would draw a distinction between a fingerboard/neck repair vs something involving body laminations. If the body laminations of your BecVar separated because water damage dissolved the glue or caused warping in the wood, then the kind of fix you mention is as much as you can do without completely ripping the body sandwich apart and reconstructing it. In the case of the body, even if there are irregularities because of dimensional wood changes, you have a cosmetic issue to deal with, but not one that would impact the playability of the instrument. With the neck, fingerboard, and underlayment, you ultimately want tolerances that will be in the thousands of an inch range. The way that this is achieved in a quality instrument is that you start with good quality, stable wood, you assemble it in a sound fashion, then you machine the fingerboard surface to the final tolerance. Even if the pieces started in tolerance, you would have to be very lucky to restore this precision without that final machining step. If you end up filling a gap in the body laminates with glue it won't affect playability because the tolerance really doesn't matter that much, but this will be a problem on the neck.

Resin glues like Titebond are really strong and resistant to environmental stress (humidity, temp to some extent). It can easily form a bond that is stronger than the wood that it set on, but if the wood is physically damaged it may have lost it's internal physical strength. You often see this when warps pull glue joints apart. You can reglue it, but what happens is that the new glue hold, but the fibers of the wood pull apart from the stress and the gap reappears.

Alembic can address what kind of glue they use for assembly (I would guess that something like Titebond is what they use for most of the instrument). They may use something different for the fingerboard and underlayment (the laminate layer between the fingerboard and the main part of the neck. You've seen mention of heat treatment to repair minor neck warps without complete reconstruction. They heat the glue joints in the neck, then apply tension to the neck to straighten out the warps, then let the neck cool. The heat softens the glue joint which allows the laminates to move slightly, then set in the new position when the heat is removed. I'm not sure that that sort of treatment would be possible of they used aliphatic resin in the sliding joints - I'm not sure that it can be softened after it sets. The underlayment is intended to be sacrificial in the event that the fingerboard is removed. Again, using Titebond here might make it more difficult to work with in the future.

Sorry for the bad vibes...

David Fung