Gibson Electric Neck problem.

[Michael Tulloch]

I have a new Gibson (I'm second owner) Midtown Custom.The neck has a slight back bow, with the truss rod backed off in neutral. So...I cannot influence the neck to get a little relief. It's not severe, but I've tried the next heavier gauge up in strings...to no avail.

I'm looking at pulling the frets, ...set some back bow with the rod engaged....then milling flat the fretboard, and re-fretting.

My question is ( the fretboard material is Richlite) , what might I encounter when pulling frets on one of these "plastic" fretboards? How's the chipping out...and what is the holding factor going back in. I had one guitar previously that I had to  epoxy in the frets, and that was horrible, I never want to do that again.

Anyone been down this road...I'm guessing that Martin is doing the same thing for some time now, with the Micarta, which maybe is the same situation?

Michael

[Bob Steinarsson]

See the following thread:

http://fretsnet.ning.com/forum/topics/noobish-question?commentId=21...

If Gibson still uses civilized glue, this will probably be less than an hour´s work.

[Michael Tulloch]

Don't want to do the heat thing. Back bow is very slight....pulling frets and re-fretting on a plastic board still wonders me. Then there's always just putting an ebony board on too....but then , I'm over invested.

[Ned Knepp]

Michael. If the bow back is so slight, have you tried loosening the  rod, clamping the neck into shape and then tightening the Truss rod again?  It seems like I remember someone here writing about doing this once. 

[Michael Tulloch]

Thanks Ned....this is a one way truss rod, influencing the neck into back bow only, to counteract too much relief or bow forward toward string tension....so that's a no-go in this instance. If I were going to flip it....the heat treat method would be the way I would go.