i did this twice...i wanted to change the fingerboard in a similar neck and and i pulled it out in.....100 pieces(thats an understatement).Granted i didnt care about the fretboards i was removing but even if i wanted to i dont think i could pull it as one piece.You my friend have the patience of a saint....
I seem to remember watching a video where they popped off the first and last fret and drilled a couple very small holes through the fret slot into the neck. When it came time to re-glue, they put small tack nails into the holes and everything was perfectly lined up with no sliding upon clamping.
Fabian God bless you sir! Thank you for this video. I just took the maple fretboard of a vintage MIJ Memphis P bass. I just took my time and made sure I had enough heat. I used a 1.5 inch flexible straight painters putty knife. The broken t-rod now can be replaced!
I own a 70s made in Japan Memphis guitar that has the same problem. But I tried forcing the neck the other way with clamps and quite lot of force, and it kind of worked fine. I don't know if it'll last. 2nd option is remove the fretboard too.
IMPORTANT: When you glue the fretboard back on you can use either a quality brand of epoxy or Tightbond (the (water based) industry standard). If using the latter you need to make sure to force a forward bow into the neck (during the glue up, not after the glue has set) by adding a shim of about a 1/16" thickness between your clamping caul and the fretboard. Failing to do this will likely result in back bow (the water in the glue causes a convex warpage) that you will not be able to adjust out with certain types of trussrods. If this is your first attempt at this use a trussrod that can adjust for both forward and back bow.
I have a classical guitar which are more delicate and I'm worried that so much heat could cause issues. Since I would like to completely replace the fretboard with a new one, would it be safer to plane or sand off the fretboard so that no heat is involved ?
I finally got up the nerve to this for my jackson compound bass neck. I am so glad I did it. I think you have a wait a long long time....5 minutes for it to heat up each section. I did do a little damage to sides of the fretboard but I think that's okay and I can fix it. I will try to post a video of my own work.
Thank you! I appreciate your clear, informative videos! I was wondering, if this was a polyurethane finish neck, how would you recommend repairing the finish after re-gluing the fingerboard? I have that kind of situation, where the back of the neck is a solid red, while the edge of the fretboard had been painted black and clear coated in poly from the factory. Thanks!
Normally I would remove the old finish and refinish with a finish of your choice. In your case I don't know. Sometimes the clear coat is thick enough to sand it and put on a new clear coat without damaging the color underneath the clear coat. But you really only know when you try it.
how do you adjust the fretboard's position when regluing it so the intonation's good ? Is there a technique for it ? Does it need to be *perfect* of do you have some wiggle room (i'm speaking in terms of fractions of a milimeter, obviously) ?
Just glue it to the same position it was before, but course you do have some wiggle room ;-) To set the intonation adjust the saddles: www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/guitar-setup-part-3-intonation/
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop so that's what i was thinking , we have some wiggle room :) i'll just mark it precisely so i don't screw everything up when i get the courage to experiment with "that guitar neck lying around"
Hello.. I wanna ask that my guitar is the one that cheap price ones..so the neck doesn't have screw.. So it become inseparable.. Can i remove my guitar fretboard myself?
I have used it on other application's with glued surfaces and has worked great ! I do have a truss rod project coming up and going to give it a try ! Somewhere in my past, Ive seen a "hot wire" clue cutter. Will have to look into. :-)
I have the same neck. Im hoping I dont have to do this. I dont think I could do as good a job as you without damaging it beyond it looking right. I would of clamped it to a straight edge like a sq. piece of tubing to dry completely straight.
Yes great job I have learnt a lot I have a Washburn guitar acoustic and I'm pretty sure the truss rod is stuffed so looks like I'm gonna have to put a new trust right in and I need all the help I can get but first I must muster up the courage to do it Thumbs up from Australia 🇦🇺👍🏼👍🏼🇦🇺🙋🏼♂️👑
@@wiseguy9202 Hi there Yes l have taken it off and it came off good And l cleaned off all the glue and just today l put a 430mm truss rod in and really tight and I got myself some titebond glue and next week l will put the fretboard back on the reason why next week is because I'm waiting on some clamps I feel somewhat proud of myself I will let you know how I went and thank you for your video to really it really helped 🇦🇺👍🇦🇺 And by the way it had a one way Martin style rod in aluminium tubing the one like yours and replacing it with a two-way
I have recently decided to stop using adjustable truss rods in my guitar builds altogether. I use three 18" x .25" x .25" carbon fiber rods spaced at .375" on center. There is a small amount of natural relief that occurs under normal string tension, about .005". This can be increased by selectively dressing frets 4-9 a few thousandths lower than the rest of the frets, with emphasis on frets 6 and 7. My issue with mechanical truss rods has to do with the impracticality of servicing them should they fail. It seems silly to remove wood to install a device, which, in essence, replaces what that wood is meant for, but which is significantly more flexible. Enough luthiers have had long term success with only carbon fiber that I am confident in and convinced of its efficacy.
Something I've heard is truss rods that are made with a U shaped channel around them, like the one removed from this neck, are generally problematic or bad.
That’s ok, I know it’s been a year but My fretboard didn’t really need replaced at the time. what kind of glue did you use? I was think about just using wood glue.
As far as I know for hide glue you have to introduce moisture and heat to soften the glue. The good thing is that you can remove the old glue with warm water.
Thank you, very helpful! What temperature did you set your iron to? (Und weil ich Deutsche Praxis brauche) Danke, sehr hilfreich! Auf welche Temperatur hast du das Bügeleisen eingestellt?
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop Vielen Dank! Ich bin einen alten Bass wiederherstellen und konnte das Griffbrett mit dieser Methode entfernen. Ich hoffe mein Deutsch ist nicht zu falsch. Nochmals vielen Dank!
doing this on a guitar neck from an offset mustang type body i have, its gibson scale maple neck, rosewood board, but the headstock is 3 a side fugly, it throws the look of the guitar right off like they dont belong together, but i have a really nice neck with a cool headstock fender scale, so i am taking 24 in scale fretboard off old neck and taking fretboard off 25 in scale neck and doing a swap, glue the shorter scale board onto the fender type neck, all measurements are near exact, wish me luck chaps,,,i'm going in.
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop yeah that was what i was thinking, but taking the measurement from the top nut,,,no intonation problems because the same 24" board is going onto a boardless neck just a different headstock really, 21 fret fender scale,,,21 fret gibson scale but measures almost exactly same length as the neck. mabe have to adjust the heel end of new neck a tiny bit.
reglueing the fretboard without proper clampling under the neck is almost sure to produce an unwanted bow. I cannot start to list all the things that are wrong in this video. Of course, it's for a guitar bought at a flea market, not your expensive guitar.
I'm no expert, this was the first and only time I had to replace a fretboard. My thought was that metal on metal conducts heat best. The frets could get scratched by the Iron but I had to do a fret job anyway so in my case it did not matter.
Schönes Video, Fabian. Ich weis zwar nicht was es da war und wofür es da ist. Aber trotzdem gut gelöst. Gut jeder arbeitet anders, weil ich hätte anstatt Bügeleisen eine Heißluftfön genommen. So wie es aussah hast du Weißleim genommen, ich hätte Knochenleim genommen oder wenn der leim hart aushärten darf, dann Fischleim genommen. Smile mit Leim kann man schöne Studien betreiben. Wegen den Fischleim, das habe ich mal bei einem Harfenbauer gesehen. Weil der härter ist wie der Knochenleim und der Fischleim kann kalt verarbeitet werden. Schönes Wochenende gewünscht. :-)
Danke! Das ist schnell beantwortet. Das ist ein Gitarrenhals. Im Hals ist ein Halsstab, der dient dazu, um den Hals wieder grade zu bekommen, weil die Gitarrensaiten den Hals sonst krümmen würden. Dieser Halsstab wird mittels einer Feder gespannt und kann somit dem Zug der Gitarrensaiten entgegenwirken. Der alte Halsstab lies sich leider nicht mehr einstellen.
It's a two year old video. In my more recent videos, I no longer use the internal microphone but an external microphone. Compreossor, EQ and Deesser in post-production.
This is how NOT to replace a trussrod. So many errors here: -No positioning pins to put the board bard exactly where it was -The neck is not held straight -The fretboard is not clamped down to hold it straight after removal -THE WRONG TRUSSROD WAS USED -He bent the crap out of the old rod pulling it out and then acted surprised it was bent This is not someone who should be working on your instrument if he actually thinks this is a good repair.
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop I think he is referring to the fact you started at the wrong end. If you look closely you see a small piece off the neck chip when you hammer in your painters knife :-) Most other video's on fretboard removal they start on the nut-side. They also heat the glue, then bend the headstock a little, which is fine if you want to save the fretboard and dump the neck, so I would use that with caution. Btw, i did not pickup the temperature of the flat iron. What temp did you set it?
Your technique is so easy, secure and clean that is what I use since seen your tutorial. It's really practical.
This is inspiring. I would never have thought of trying this myself.
This is exactly the situation I am facing at this time. You have given the inspiration to attack this task. Thank you and well done.
i did this twice...i wanted to change the fingerboard in a similar neck and and i pulled it out in.....100 pieces(thats an understatement).Granted i didnt care about the fretboards i was removing but even if i wanted to i dont think i could pull it as one piece.You my friend have the patience of a saint....
I seem to remember watching a video where they popped off the first and last fret and drilled a couple very small holes through the fret slot into the neck. When it came time to re-glue, they put small tack nails into the holes and everything was perfectly lined up with no sliding upon clamping.
Fabian God bless you sir! Thank you for this video. I just took the maple fretboard of a vintage MIJ Memphis P bass. I just took my time and made sure I had enough heat. I used a 1.5 inch flexible straight painters putty knife. The broken t-rod now can be replaced!
I own a 70s made in Japan Memphis guitar that has the same problem. But I tried forcing the neck the other way with clamps and quite lot of force, and it kind of worked fine. I don't know if it'll last. 2nd option is remove the fretboard too.
Great video and very inspiring! Thank you for taking the time to share your skills and knowledge 🙏
IMPORTANT: When you glue the fretboard back on you can use either a quality brand of epoxy or Tightbond (the (water based) industry standard). If using the latter you need to make sure to force a forward bow into the neck (during the glue up, not after the glue has set) by adding a shim of about a 1/16" thickness between your clamping caul and the fretboard. Failing to do this will likely result in back bow (the water in the glue causes a convex warpage) that you will not be able to adjust out with certain types of trussrods. If this is your first attempt at this use a trussrod that can adjust for both forward and back bow.
would you recommend hide glue?
@@zeljkostevic1144 I've never used it. Can't say.
Thanks! do you insert the shim at the midpoint of the fretboard, or at some other point?
@@Clyde_Lewis Yeah, middle.
Thank You for this Video. I need to Remove a Fretboard on a Telecaster. After watching your Video, I now know how to go about it. Thanks.
Damn. If I knew this I never would have bought another guitar neck with more frets
Thanks for this video, first time I saw a truss rod
Great job and very interesting vid mate. Thanks for sharing. (I'm looking forward to seeing this fleamarket guitar all finished!)
what are the tools are used?
I have a mexican strat with a frozen truss rod. I feel like I can do this now. Thanks!
Awesome video, thank you! What sort of glue and sandpaper did you use?
I can answer if u don't mind. Use any type of woodglue. And sandpaper 120. Not to smooth bcoz the glue needs a grip.
Awesome work! What are the chances of having the fretboard getting cracked because of the excessive heat applied? Thanks
Of course, there is always the possibility that something will go wrong.
Nice fix Fabian! Thanks for sharing the video.👍😎JP
Hi Fabian. 1. Do you use PVA to back glue the finger board on the neck? 2. You made the shims from a thin piece wedge shaped wood?
I have a classical guitar which are more delicate and I'm worried that so much heat could cause issues. Since I would like to completely replace the fretboard with a new one, would it be safer to plane or sand off the fretboard so that no heat is involved ?
I don't think heat is a problem. But of course you can plane or sand it down, since you don't want to keep the original fretboard.
I finally got up the nerve to this for my jackson compound bass neck. I am so glad I did it. I think you have a wait a long long time....5 minutes for it to heat up each section. I did do a little damage to sides of the fretboard but I think that's okay and I can fix it. I will try to post a video of my own work.
Is the process any different for set neck guitars with binding like most Les Pauls and SGs?
Thank you! I appreciate your clear, informative videos! I was wondering, if this was a polyurethane finish neck, how would you recommend repairing the finish after re-gluing the fingerboard? I have that kind of situation, where the back of the neck is a solid red, while the edge of the fretboard had been painted black and clear coated in poly from the factory. Thanks!
Normally I would remove the old finish and refinish with a finish of your choice. In your case I don't know. Sometimes the clear coat is thick enough to sand it and put on a new clear coat without damaging the color underneath the clear coat. But you really only know when you try it.
how do you adjust the fretboard's position when regluing it so the intonation's good ? Is there a technique for it ? Does it need to be *perfect* of do you have some wiggle room (i'm speaking in terms of fractions of a milimeter, obviously) ?
Just glue it to the same position it was before, but course you do have some wiggle room ;-)
To set the intonation adjust the saddles:
www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/guitar-setup-part-3-intonation/
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop so that's what i was thinking , we have some wiggle room :) i'll just mark it precisely so i don't screw everything up when i get the courage to experiment with "that guitar neck lying around"
This inspires me to tackle this and change my own. Create my own inlays as well
what kind of glue did you used to reattach the fretboard?
www.ponal.de/produkte/wei%C3%9Fleime/fh/ponal-classic/7
Hello.. I wanna ask that my guitar is the one that cheap price ones..so the neck doesn't have screw.. So it become inseparable.. Can i remove my guitar fretboard myself?
You can try or you can bring it to a luthier.
Have you ever tried a old guitar string, with wood dowel rods on each end as handles ? Push/pull,, instead of metal blade.
No never tried it. Have you?
I have used it on other application's with glued surfaces and has worked great ! I do have a truss rod project coming up and going to give it a try ! Somewhere in my past, Ive seen a "hot wire" clue cutter. Will have to look into. :-)
@@pappystar1 keen to know how it worked out!
Thanks!!! Just bought a cheap tele with truss Rod nut turning with NO adjustment! Assume threaded! I have an iron and a steel rule!! Off I go !
I have the same neck. Im hoping I dont have to do this. I dont think I could do as good a job as you without damaging it beyond it looking right. I would of clamped it to a straight edge like a sq. piece of tubing to dry completely straight.
Why did you put adhesive tape on top of the truss rod? what's the purpose of doing that? thank you.
To protect it from the glue
Thanks Fabian. I'll give that a try.
Wonder what to do when glue is not heat sensitive?
Thank You - It worked like a charm!
Yes great job
I have learnt a lot
I have a Washburn guitar acoustic and I'm pretty sure the truss rod is stuffed so looks like I'm gonna have to put a new trust right in and I need all the help I can get but first I must muster up the courage to do it
Thumbs up from Australia 🇦🇺👍🏼👍🏼🇦🇺🙋🏼♂️👑
Did you ever do it?
@@wiseguy9202
Hi there
Yes l have taken it off and it came off good
And l cleaned off all the glue and just today l put a 430mm truss rod in and really tight and I got myself some titebond glue and next week l will put the fretboard back on the reason why next week is because I'm waiting on some clamps I feel somewhat proud of myself
I will let you know how I went and thank you for your video to really it really helped
🇦🇺👍🇦🇺
And by the way it had a one way Martin style rod in aluminium tubing the one like yours and replacing it with a two-way
@@123elvislives Awesome that's great to hear!
i was planning on soaking my tuss rod starting to think i should replace it.
I have recently decided to stop using adjustable truss rods in my guitar builds altogether.
I use three 18" x .25" x .25" carbon fiber rods spaced at .375" on center. There is a small amount of natural relief that occurs under normal string tension, about .005". This can be increased by selectively dressing frets 4-9 a few thousandths lower than the rest of the frets, with emphasis on frets 6 and 7.
My issue with mechanical truss rods has to do with the impracticality of servicing them should they fail. It seems silly to remove wood to install a device, which, in essence, replaces what that wood is meant for, but which is significantly more flexible.
Enough luthiers have had long term success with only carbon fiber that I am confident in and convinced of its efficacy.
I was having thoughts of doing that on my mid 80's Westone.
Something I've heard is truss rods that are made with a U shaped channel around them, like the one removed from this neck, are generally problematic or bad.
This video was very helpful, can you do one on how to put a fretboard on a neck?
Sorry but I don't have a neck that needs a fretboard.
That’s ok, I know it’s been a year but My fretboard didn’t really need replaced at the time. what kind of glue did you use? I was think about just using wood glue.
excellent video. great job.
Will this work on hide glue? Great channel! Subbed.
As far as I know for hide glue you have to introduce moisture and heat to soften the glue. The good thing is that you can remove the old glue with warm water.
How about replacing frets and all? My fretboard is nasty.
Of course if your guitar needs a refret you can do that too.
th-cam.com/users/results?search_query=refretting
Ou should take a look at bedding a rifle action and barrel i think some of the techniques used could really be helpful in your game just a thought
Why not fill the cavity completely with maple and reroute for the proper size?
Thank you, very helpful! What temperature did you set your iron to?
(Und weil ich Deutsche Praxis brauche)
Danke, sehr hilfreich! Auf welche Temperatur hast du das Bügeleisen eingestellt?
Ich glaube ich hatte es auf die maximale Temperatur eingestellt.
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop Vielen Dank! Ich bin einen alten Bass wiederherstellen und konnte das Griffbrett mit dieser Methode entfernen. Ich hoffe mein Deutsch ist nicht zu falsch. Nochmals vielen Dank!
Wonderful, useful really nice work, I like it very much, thank you for sharing : )
Thanks buddy, nice video 👍🇬🇧
3:42 this is the first line of
"the woodworksong":
so there is still a little,
bit of glue left in the middle... 😉 super video
i did put the words in correct order now ☺️
doing this on a guitar neck from an offset mustang type body i have, its gibson scale maple neck, rosewood board, but the headstock is 3 a side fugly, it throws the look of the guitar right off like they dont belong together, but i have a really nice neck with a cool headstock fender scale, so i am taking 24 in scale fretboard off old neck and taking fretboard off 25 in scale neck and doing a swap, glue the shorter scale board onto the fender type neck, all measurements are near exact, wish me luck chaps,,,i'm going in.
Goode luck! Make sure you don't run into any trouble with intonation changing the scale of the neck.
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop yeah that was what i was thinking, but taking the measurement from the top nut,,,no intonation problems because the same 24" board is going onto a boardless neck just a different headstock really, 21 fret fender scale,,,21 fret gibson scale but measures almost exactly same length as the neck. mabe have to adjust the heel end of new neck a tiny bit.
Could that be done with a heat gun?
Not likely, it will most likely burn the lacquer FWIW
Awesome! Thanks for the video
great video!
reglueing the fretboard without proper clampling under the neck is almost sure to produce an unwanted bow. I cannot start to list all the things that are wrong in this video. Of course, it's for a guitar bought at a flea market, not your expensive guitar.
Well maybe I was lucky. I can only tell you that the guitar plays great. After the necessary fret leveling the action is perfect.
Hallo super gelöst das Problem. 👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻
thanks , i have many Truss rods that need to be replace
Shouldn't you use a tea towel or something to put over the frets and then sit the iron on that way?
I'm no expert, this was the first and only time I had to replace a fretboard. My thought was that metal on metal conducts heat best. The frets could get scratched by the Iron but I had to do a fret job anyway so in my case it did not matter.
@@FabiansTinyWorkshopyeah fair enough. I want to keep the frets on mine so would it be safer for me to use a tea towel?
@@carnivorousrose1694 I don't see why not. Just give it a try 👍
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop sweet, thanks. I'll let you know how it goes 👍
Great job. Thanks! 😁👏
Thank you sir!
Great job I learned something
Appreciate you checking it out!
I learned something 👍
Schönes Video, Fabian.
Ich weis zwar nicht was es da war und wofür es da ist.
Aber trotzdem gut gelöst. Gut jeder arbeitet anders, weil ich hätte anstatt Bügeleisen eine Heißluftfön genommen. So wie es aussah hast du Weißleim genommen, ich hätte Knochenleim genommen oder wenn der leim hart aushärten darf, dann Fischleim genommen. Smile mit Leim kann man schöne Studien betreiben. Wegen den Fischleim, das habe ich mal bei einem Harfenbauer gesehen. Weil der härter ist wie der Knochenleim und der Fischleim kann kalt verarbeitet werden.
Schönes Wochenende gewünscht. :-)
Danke! Das ist schnell beantwortet. Das ist ein Gitarrenhals. Im Hals ist ein Halsstab, der dient dazu, um den Hals wieder grade zu bekommen, weil die Gitarrensaiten den Hals sonst krümmen würden. Dieser Halsstab wird mittels einer Feder gespannt und kann somit dem Zug der Gitarrensaiten entgegenwirken. Der alte Halsstab lies sich leider nicht mehr einstellen.
Time to make a blocks and binding fingerboard for my Jagstang done right.
Fantastic job.
Nice Job !!
Good job 👍
Bout to have to do this stripped truss rod,
Ugh. Lol. I just refretted it and didn’t realize the truss was stripped. Hours in vain.
Man please use a de-esser on your vocal its so pitchy on those s and shh
It's a two year old video. In my more recent videos, I no longer use the internal microphone but an external microphone. Compreossor, EQ and Deesser in post-production.
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop its great could you suggest me how do I remove fretboard of solid body guitar mine is vox SDC 22
nice work indeed!
Be sure you don't tell anyone the heat setting on the iron or anything.
did it without removing frets made it easier
Tolles Werkzeug dieses "Fretboard-Remover" ding 😉
Ja, angeblich soll man damit auch den Rechten Winkel messen können.... hab ich aber noch nicht ausprobiert ;-)
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop
Quatsch!!! Gleich zwei Dinge mit einem Werkzeug??? Mach kein Mist... Ist bestimmt aus dem Teleshopping Kanal 😉
Ever tuned in to watch a man iron a guitar
Very cool
Esses tensores modernos não prestam, o antigo que você tirou é excelente.
U tought me how to rescue my guitar!
Cool.
Genius!!!
You could have done that more carefully! 🤣
Cheers
well done
This is how NOT to replace a trussrod. So many errors here:
-No positioning pins to put the board bard exactly where it was
-The neck is not held straight
-The fretboard is not clamped down to hold it straight after removal
-THE WRONG TRUSSROD WAS USED
-He bent the crap out of the old rod pulling it out and then acted surprised it was bent
This is not someone who should be working on your instrument if he actually thinks this is a good repair.
Looks like a forty minute job 🤔😄
Holy hell man... do it the right way!!! Youre butchering the poor neck!! Sloppy job...
I am by far not an expert and I am pretty sure you know what I did wrong. Would you be so kind to explain?
@@FabiansTinyWorkshop I think he is referring to the fact you started at the wrong end. If you look closely you see a small piece off the neck chip when you hammer in your painters knife :-) Most other video's on fretboard removal they start on the nut-side. They also heat the glue, then bend the headstock a little, which is fine if you want to save the fretboard and dump the neck, so I would use that with caution. Btw, i did not pickup the temperature of the flat iron. What temp did you set it?
a lot of work and cost for a $50 neck
great video !!