Fretboard dressup.

[mikesr1963]

The black Squier i have I have owned for about 3 years. It was a blemish, and the rosewood on the fretboard was dull with very little luster and the frets were dull with little shine. The neck was straight and it played well and for an inexspensive guitar the action was good and low.

A lot of expensive guitars have frets that really shine and the fretboard looks like a nice piece of furniture. I read a post a while back where the person wrote about making his fret shine like chrome. When I read that a light bulb popped on in my head. One of my other hobbies is yoyoing, and some time back I took a aluminum yoyo and polished it until it had a chrome like finish using my dremal and some polishing compound. I have also refinished several pieces of furniture and had used steel wool and had all this stuff.

So I took the steel wool and rubbed the rosewood in the direction of the grain taking a fine layer of dust off the top. Then wiped that down and took masking tape and taped off the rosewood. Then I took the steelwool and rubbed down the frets, going back and forth several times on each fret. Then I took the dremal and a buffing attachement with the polishing compound and buffed out each fret. I removed the tape and then wiped the frets down and applied some Dr. Stringfellow Lem-oil to the fretboard. The end result is real nice in person but I can't get a decent picture and I didn't take any before pictures. Also, if you have any sharpe fret ends, before you remove the tape is a good time to use the dremel to cut those down.







Before: My shoreline gold Squier Strat





After:

[sumgai]

mike,

Nice job!

One thing..... did you do the work with the neck still mounted on the body, or off of the it?



sumgai

[mikesr1963]

Left it on.

[sumgai]

Then I assume that you masked off the body itself, particularly the top, most especially the pickups themselves, right? Seems to me that if you didn't, then you musta had a good time cleaning all the filings out of the pickup itself (or plural, themselves), eh? Not to mention the possiblity of a tool slipping at just the wrong moment, and voila, a new repair job, instantly, right before your very eyes.

Best method for doing this, IMO, is to remove the neck, and mount it to another piece of wood. I make a doubled up piece of ¾" particle board, about 4 or 5" bigger all around than the neck, and mount said neck to that. To get the mounting holes, I just use the neck plate as a template, and presto! ;D

For stability, it can be made larger, or it can be clamped to a workbench with low profile clamps. Either way, it's sure to make the job less stressful, not having to worry about the body. I also use a short shim under the headstock, and run a bolt through one of the machine head holes (yes, after removing the thing!) and into the board. Now the neck can't flex in any direction, making for a nice work piece.

(Obviously, for a set neck, this isn't an option. Just mask the top of the guitar in a couple of layers, such as painter's plastic over a blanket, that'll do fine. Tape it down with low-tack gaffer's tape, or clamp the whole thing to your workbench.)

HTH



sumgai