Do Gibson Glue their Frets?

Hi, I was wondering whether anybody could clarify something for me. Does anybody know if Gibson use glue whilst fretting these days. I only ask, as the only Gibsons I have performed fretwork on, had already been refretted, prior to my work. The new models I see, seem to have a 'glued' look where the fret meets the fingerboard. Just asking out of interest!
Thanks,
Dar

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Permalink Reply by Russell Vance on May 12, 2009 at 4:10pm

Darren, Hi,
I have been working on new Gibsons including Custom Shop instruments for a while and have not observed anything that would make me think they glue in their frets. The advent of PLEC as a production tool would also be a good reason to not glue in frets due to the local heating of the fret as the PLEC cutter head grinds the area (ie: glue would soften) and also, glueing frets is a time consuming process and major large volume manufacturers are run by the accountants (unfortunate but necessary situation these days). If you see an obviously glued in fret it probably means that fret has had a problem.

This however is an opinion as best as I can form based on a lot of Gibsons both new and old, across the bench - I do not know the answer and if Gibson say they glue in frets, well I guess they do. Rusty.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Krebs on May 12, 2009 at 8:30pm

I don't think they do either. That's a couple more pennies on the bottom line. I recently re-fretted a 2007 Les Paul with jumbo wire and don't remember any CA odor when pulling the frets. Like Rusty, just a solo opinion.

A little off topic ... Their quality control seems to be a bit off sometimes. I worked on a BB King Lucille last week. The neck binding was incredibly rough, and they missed a soldering joint on the rear pick-up causing an intermittent short. Easily fixed.... but for $3000 the customer was bummed he had to pay for repair on a new axe.