Help with Ebony Flaking, S'il Vous PlaȊt.

[Robbie Collins]

I'm working on a 1976 LP Custom that once belonged to Capricorn Studios here in Macon. The frets were a mess and the neck had an S-bow. I pulled the frets using patience and a soldering iron and most came out fine but several slots flaked between the slot and the inlay:

Not a great photo, but you get the idea.

I filled these, filed, and sanded them level. I reglued the binding and then, for the first time, cleaned the slots using my Proxxon rotary tool. Worked great but created two new flakes, also from the slot to the inlay. I filled those and moved on to leveling the fingerboard.

Sanding the board created 5-6 new flakes, again from the slot to the inlay.  I filled, filed and sanded (BTW, I'm using Behlen Master Furniture Powder) then ran 220 over the fretboard to kiss the fills, created a few more flakes...and pulled out some of my previous fills.

I feel like Sysiphus in Hades, forever doomed to roll the rock up the hill, let it roll down, then roll it up again.

Do you guys have any pointers for finding closure here? I don't' know what to do but be gentle and persevere.

Thanks...Robbie

[Kerry Krishna]

 There does come a point were you will be finished Robbie.

 But, I am thinking that maybe you are at the point now were you should just 'put the guitar away' for a few weeks, and get over all the frustration. 

 I can only speak for myself, but similar situations have happened with me many, many times, and just putting the project away for awhile  will restore not only your confidence, but also a sense of wellbeing when next you have to tackle it.

  Go work on another guitar for a few days and STOP being hard on yourself.  ALL of us here have projects like this one... 

[Mike Kolb]

Yeah, that's always an uphill battle. One thing I like to do is to step-back every now & again to see "what's a chip and what isn't".... by laying a sample piece of the new fretwire over the slot and see what it covers, or doesn't.

Then, I'm looking-forward to trying-out a new little wrinkle on fret-pulling from StewMac. If it works as advertised, it may minimize the chips from the onset. 

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting_supplies/Pullers,_nippers,_siz...

Also, never a bad idea to bevel the slots a taste, even before fretting, to reduce the "snag points" prior to leveling and sanding.

[Mark Fogleman]

I saw this "Chip Stopper" the other day and did a head smack:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e7Y22WxaiJc   I use SM's Teflon fret dams to fill the slots while filling in the chips with sawdust  and CA.

Capricorn was really something in its heyday. I took a pilgrimage there ~spring of 1974 with a friend for him to interview/audition for a studio drummer gig.  Then on to the Georgia Jam in Atlanta stadium for an extra large time.    

[Hesh Breakstone]

Hi Robbie:

Ebony boards can be frustrating at times because of this tendency to chip when "lifting" frets.  Some of the things that help me are as follows:

1)  Fret lifter/nipper technique.  The Stew-Mac lifters from a decade or so ago had a more radical bevel in the jaws and the act of removing a fret did not require any pulling at all.  Just by keeping the face of the tool firmly in contact with the board, keeping the potential, wanna-be chips pinned down, closing the jaws engaged the more radical bevel and the frets would lift more cleanly.  I have a more recent pair and they suck... for lifting frets because the bevel angle is pretty minimal.  So I prefer the smaller fret lifters that SM sells because they have a more radical bevel and by having smaller jaws all together they seem to just work better at getting under the frets especially on boards with a tighter radius.  If you can find, beg, borrow, or steal... an older SM pair or make your own from the commercially available nippers it can be a big improvement.

2)  When lifting frets I always have a pipet of fresh, very thin CA handy and at the first sign of a chip wanting to happen I hold it back in place with a blunt screw driver and CA the sucker back down.  Take that I say.... ;)

3)  Flakes, chips, etc. also have a tendency to want to launch into the shop too completely leaving the board.  When I have a board that is wanting to do this I take a water bottle and my high-tech application augmentation device (my finger...) and spread a bead of water on both sides of the fret and rub it in a bit too.  This softens the ebony not unlike wet cardboard and the chips may lift but they rarely fly out providing me with the opportunity to CA the thing back in place.

Don't worry about the ugly CA beads on the board, next to the slots, etc.  It all sands away during the leveling process.

If you divorce yourself to the idea that we have to clean out the fret slots anyway, regardless of how you accomplish this task, getting some CA in the slot is not a problem.

If all else fails my nephew drives a beer truck and he has been keen in the past to assist his uncle by letting me place an uncooperative instrument on the tarmac as he rolls his truck over it at moderate speed.  It's great fun..., and before anyone gets their panties in a bunch we have only done this prior with instruments of no value to anyone including fixing up and donating to a worthy cause.  Pitching them in a roaring camp fire is very nearly as fun and the noises can be rather entertaining and kind of remind me of my youth and listening to the Mahavishu Orchestra on 45 speed and not knowing that I needed to move the belt on my AR turntable.... 

Anyway a little water can help, CA commands some respect too, a good tool that has the geometry required to "lift" frets and not pull them, and as you mentioned some heat too to soften the glue helping the frets come out cleanly.  If all else fails give me a call and my nephew and I will come for a visit... ;)

Lastly don't ya just love 70's Les Pauls....  IMHO they seem to be the worst of the worst from Gibson and that unruly neck that you mentioned is not uncommon during this period...  Last week I was cleaning out the nut slot on a 70's LPC and I'll be darned if there was not a BLS (bondo-like-substance) used as filler to compensate for a poor fitting original nut....  It's enough to ruin your day I tell ya...;)

[Robbie Collins]

Thanks, Guys! Kerry...I took your advice, put the guitar in the corner wearing a dunce hat, and went to a small guitar show up at Lake Oconee. Lake Oconee, BTW, is a Corp of Engineers lake sporting Reynolds Plantation. A lot of  rich folks seem to think it's the cat's pajamas for retirement and is where the late, great Mickey Mantle drew his last breath.

Anyway...there were 2 vintage dealers and about 10 builders including Bob Altman whose guitars are the finest of the fine. He said Gibson doesn't seem to check for ebony runout at least on their electrics. That would certainly explain it.

Runout might suggest a solution: sand in one direction or on the bias if I can determine the runout direction.

Mike - I'm definitely going to try beveling the slots prior to sanding...that's a great idea!

Mark - I've got the SM teflon sheet and use the strips in the slots religiously. The Don McRostie chip stoppers will be on my shopping list. I have decided to avoid all confrontations with ebony in the future and these might help. I am also going to price ebony neck refrets more than rosewood.

Hesh - I'll have to tell you about sitting in the front row as a guest of the record company for the Mahavishnu 'Birds of Fire' tour and my subsequent dressing room visit. Yes...eat your heart out.

I certainly considered hiring a steamroller or maybe a Redneck Games contestant with a monster truck to intimidate this guitar. However, I took pity when I saw the big "2" stamped underneath the serial. Can you imagine...the Gibson rep presented a 2nd to Capricorn as a gift of appreciation for all the guitars Duane and Dickey helped sell?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about the fret lifter bevel...you mean the inside bevel? I use a pair of German Knipex high leverage end cutters instead of the Stew Mac:

http://www.amazon.com/69-01-130-Leverage-Cutters-Lap/dp/B0048F1AIE/...

Pricey but first quality. The inside bevel is...er...high leverage because of the steep bevel? The top, however, while flat at the top is otherwise rounded. I don't think this is a problem but it wouldn't hurt to flatten it further.

[Paul Verticchio]

Hi Robbie.

To prevent chipping when 'dressing' the FB sans frets, I use my xx slim triangle file to chamfer the fret slots just as you would before seating the fret. The resulting mini-bevels on slots eliminate a "catch point" on the FB thereby minimizing additional chips.

This may be a step you wish to consider. It's not 100% foolproof, but it's saved me immeasurable hours of cosmetic touch-up's.

And Hesh, thanks for validating my observations on 70's era LP's. I don't know what was worse: A. the workmanship; B. the miserable woods they used; C. the crappy hardware & electronics or; D. the invisible lead bars they added to the bodies to make them weigh in the 15 lb. range. The correct answer is (of course); E. ALL of the above ;) The '70's were an awful low point for the 'big 2' electric manufacturers. Thankfully, Fender recovered.

Best of luck with it, Robbie :)   ....btw: how'd you get that inlay to fluoresce? ;)

[Robbie Collins]

Thanks, Paul, for the advice. I'm going to chamfer away.

I've been very amused at the demand for 70's Fenders and Gibsons. I wouldn't touch one with a 10' pole.  All the changes ordered by the Norlin/CBS bean counters were detrimental...those guitars haven't matured like red wine.

Gonna try the hemispherical fret thang when I get the flakes down. I lust after Dan Erlewine's Grobet Vigor mini-grinder with it's custom attachments.

[Kerry Krishna]

Robbie, just so ya know, last week, I had the worst ebony pull out/chipping that I have ever seen on a guitar. It was a 1930s Kay Kraft that needed a partial refret. I am not going to go into exactly how bad in was, needless to say that I stopped cold after three frets.  Imagine the worst chip pull out you have ever seen , and times it by three, and you start to get the idea.

And then started thinking about Fender's hammering out sideways method, but just gave up and fixed the board as best I could and refreted what I had done. I am totally set up here to be making fretboards from scratch too, and seriously considered it... 

[Robbie Collins]

Kerry...boy, your heart must have sank.

In terms of making a new fingerboard... getting better ebony for a replacement board isn't a sure thing either, but it sounds like anything would be better. Do you buy billets and resaw?

I heard a lot of disheartening things from builders at the guitar show today. While it's been an amazing era to be alive with so many high points, watching the commercial extinction of tropical hardwoods hasn't been one of them.

[Kerry Krishna]

Robbie, I have talked about this before on the Forum. So... I am about 10 hour drive North of Vancouver.In Vancouver is the Canadian Larrivee factory. Here in P.G. (Prince George) and in about ten Canadian cities, we have a chain Lumber store called Windsor Plywood.

 The connection between Windsor Plywood PG, and Larrivee, is.... we get ALLLLLL Larrivee's reject wood up here!

 There are generally about 5 bins  of 5 by 5 by 5 feet boxes delivered up here every year of nothing but thousands of ebony reject boards.

 Usually, there is only one board out of 12 that is useable, and trust me when I say, you just about NEED to have kevlar gloves on to go through the ebony, as the slivers on shattered boards are inches long, and ebony slivers are... painful is one word that begins to describe it.

 Anyway, I get all my boards there, and they also get all the reject mahogany back and sides, and sometimes rosewood and koa and flamed maple too. 

[Robbie Collins]

Interesting...lucky you! No guitar factories near me :-( 

[Mark A. Kane]

If I run into a chippy ebony board, I sometimes "paint" water-thin CA along the fret before removal. It sounds counter-intuitive but I've found it helpful in some cases. I almost always repair the damaged slot immediately after pulling a fret; facing a FB full of chips is too discouraging, sometimes!

BTW, I have the Stew-Mac chip stoppers. I'll be sending them back. It seems like a great idea but in practice I found that the fretboard starts to chip and lift as you push the tool under the fret, because even though the tool is only .010" in thickness, it does not "slide" under the fret or over the emerging chips readily. The fret must be lifted more than .010" to get it started. It needs to be lifted .015-.020". The FB starts to chip, of course, when you lift it enough to get the tool started. The emerging chips then stop the tool from advancing under the fret. If you attempt to force the issue, the tool splays out from under the fret. Of the frets I was able to get the tool completely under (along their entire length), each took far too much time to be practical for my purposes. If time is't an issue then it's no problem and the tool might prove useful. I tried a few different approaches, but all required multiple tool "exchanges" which slowed things considerably. For example, I like to have my Weller soldering gun in one hand and my pullers in the other. I can typically make quick work of fret removal without ever putting either down until the job is finished (a couple of minutes in most cases), but attempting to integrate the chip stopper in my routine meant the soldering iron cooled between each "exchange", and each fret required on the order of 5-10 exchanges! Very slow indeed! Even when I must do an exchange to repair a slot, I only have to do it once per fret. I realize that in time my time would improve, but my normal technique is so ingrained and works for me so well, I don't want to re-invent the wheel. In some respects, my belief is that this tool attempts to solve a problem that, in most cases, is not really a problem (for me) at all (though chip-out is annoying, it's usually easily rectified with a little practice). Of course, your mileage may vary. ;)