So the owner decided he didn't want to replace the fretboard. And I explained to him the issues with leveling the whole thing, so he opted not to do that either!
So after taking some measurements I made the decision to refret with 6140 fretwire, which matched the old wire VERY closely except I have no way to know what the original fret height was. Regarding the scallops I decided to lower them just slightly to clear space for the new fretwire.
I couldn't bear the thought of ripping up the old binding to make the frets flush with a 35' file, so I decided to try to keep the look as original as possible. Difficult as there was a TON of damage that the old "repair" (I hesitate to use that word even) guy did, nicks and marks and old stains just all over the place on both the binding as well as the fretboard.
In light of this, I decided that this guitar will play well no matter what. First order of business was to build a fret filing jig. I didn't want the fret ends to go over the binding (the nibs were almost gone so I decided to try to save what was left of them) I had a spare blank maple fretboard from a past repair that ended up not happening. So I glued it to a strip of scrap spruce to create clearance from my bench top.
The fretboard was to file the frets on separate from the guitar to get the frets flush against the binding, thereby not compromising the remaining binding, once I get them filed to the length I need, I can simply install them. During the leveling process I beveled the edges to smooth them out.
I didn't take photos of the leveling process, you guys all know how that goes. Here is the fretboard after installation and cleanup, I hadn't polished up to 8K micromesh at this point but it was looking MUCH better with the new frets. You can see where the previous person stopped with his destructive rampage against the fretboard in this pic.
Guitar plays well now, was alot of work but it was worth it. Not the prettiest fretboard I've ever done, but at least the worst of it wasn't my fault haha!
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