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I am binding an ebony board with .047 abalone and another .060 of ebony. This makes about .11 of material outboard of the fret slots in the board. Is this too big an amount to trim the tangs on the frets? Will the fret ends behave cantilevered out there?

thanks

Ed

It does seem like quite a bit. Why not install the abalone (and saw through it) and then install the outer layer of ebony? You should be able to install the shell in a rebate and file or sand it flush with the edges of the board to allow the added ebony strip to come up flush to it.

How thick would the shell be? If you slotted the shell would a barb crack/crumble the shell when the tang went in?

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

That is just over 1/10", which is where we often end up after trimming. A slight pre-bend on the fret end keeps things tight. The higher and wider the crown, the less to worry about, although the slight flex downward of the crown has to be carefully done to avoid an obvious bend. When refretting over shell, we open up a 0.040" clearance to avoid the fret barbs fracturing shell on the way into the board. This can be done with a Foredom tool and router base (or Dremel) with depth set to just clear the bottom of the shell

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I've done it both ways, let the fret end hang over the pearl and cut through the pearl so that the tang went to the binding. Worked either way. To do the cut through pearl and keep it from chipping, which I like best, I bind the board with the pearl and a waste binding. Then I saw the kerf through the pearl and binding. Finally I remove the waste binding on the edge sander and install the correct binding. It's very easy to do that.You still might have to file the width of the wire tang where it goes through the pearl because you can't compress pearl.--Bob

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“ The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away” Pablo Picasso

Some great ideas. I might take the .060 ebony down to .040 or so and let the ends overhang. Thanks all

Ed