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Is there anyway to tell if a neck from the 70's has been re-fretted before and thus won't require knocking the frets out the side? It's a Rosewood fretboard.

I mention it in the last paragraph here..... sometimes you gotta push one a bit to see.
https://howardguitars.blogspot.com/2018 ... moval.html

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Brian's description is excellent. Dan Erlewine also has a good one in his book on guitar repair. I recently refretted an old SRV neck with SS - the tang and barbs on the new wire was both wider and deeper than the original (Brian shows that near the end).

I pulled the neck off of this guitar in preparation for re-fretting it, and found this nice crack in the heel of the neck.

The neck is a 70 something music master neck that the guy put on a vintage vibe squier duo sonic body. It looks like he filled the old holes and just gave 'er on the new holes...

Seems easy enough to glue and clamp, the crack moves with pressure from my hands. But I have no idea what this will do to the integrity of the neck.

i think it will be fine if the screws are piloted and lubed properly when it is put back on.

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

I got the frets out no problem. Thanks Brian for your blog link.

Now I need to get some replacement fret wire. It seems the slots are .018 wide, however because it's an older Fender neck and the frets were pushed in from the side it's actually a T slot and the bottom will be thicker than than the top. I believe Dan Erlewine's book suggests replacing frets with a tang that is about .002 thicker than the existing slot. I have some Jescar fretwire, the width of the tang is .020 but the barbs go out to .032 or .033. Would this be an acceptable replacement?

You will notice the slots are not as deep either....... So rather than file down all those tangs or use banjo wire I just widen and deepen the slots slightly to match modern spec guitar wire. The depth is more noticeable than the width on the finished job.....

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

That's what I did with the one I mentioned above - just opened the slots to fit the wire that I was going to use. I've made a couple of little "tools" out of a piece of fretwire - I bent it in an L shape and filed the barbs off both sides. I can use it to check that the slots are clean and deep enough for the wire that I'm going to use. With a bound board I can tell if the slot is clean right up to the binding (this is a bound board on something else, not the strat neck)




FWIW, when I refretted the Strat neck I don't think the originals were pushed in from the sides, whether they were or not I hammered the new ones in from the top.

Thanks guys, Freeman I forgot about that little trick with the "L" shaped piece of fretwire. I made one up and it seems like this fretwire I have fits snugly in the slot, but I can slide it all the way through the slot, and it seats well all along so the depth seems okay too.

So on "vintage" guitar necks is widening and deepening the fret slot a common and acceptable practice? My particular situation is not quite the same as working on a 50's tele or strat, but for future reference... I imagine many people would balk at the idea of modifying their vintage instrument just to fit new fret wire.

I am not an expert on collectible guitars and what collectors expect to see but in my opinion frets are like tires on cars - they wear out and should be replaced. I happen to own a couple of vintage cars, including one that is regularly driven on the race track. Trust me, I want new modern tire technology on that baby - please no vintage bias belted rubber.

We had a thread a while back where I asked about maintaining the plastic nibs on a guitar with binding ends of the frets - there is no question that the guitar needed new frets but I was asking about trying to fit them in between the nibs. The consensus was "nix the nibs"

This is a case by case basis..... most often I will plow the nibs off after pulling the frets and refret in the modern way. But this will destroy collectible value! So if it is in good shape and may be collectible at some point in time I will have a discussion about saving the nibs with the client. Certain vintage instruments I will highly recommend it. It is a tedious, time consuming and therefore very expensive job to do.

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Is it typical of an older rosewood fret board that the slots would be tighter and harder in some places than others, softer and loose in others?