One project I haven't mentioned much is the Encore bass refinish I have been working on. The guitar itself was purchased from a junk shop many years ago and I hardly ever played it.
I decided to refinish the whole thing as it looked well worn the day I bought it so a couple of moths ago I stripped it down and repainted the body and the neck. I sprayed it black but added racing stripes to the body a couple of weeks ago.
This weekend I decided to have a look at the fret board. It was always my intention to re-crown the frets but I decided to clean the fingerboard initially. I tried various solvents to clean the wood between the frets but int he end took some sand paper and to my utter surprise the fingerboard looks like it is made of light maple not something like the dark rosewood I assumed it was made from.
Years of use, sweat and beer must have accumulated to darken the wood leaving the impression this bass had a rosewood fret board. I had to really work hard to get a nice even colour all over the front of the neck.
The picture below is a good example of the amount of grime I had to contend with. There is always a chance that the wood was stained to look darker than it actually was, the white fret markers don't stand out that well against the light maple.
I used my random orbital sander to get right up to the edge of the frets and then sanded carefully across the grain with 400 grit sandpaper on some of the more stubborn marks and then eventually went over the whole neck following the grain to remove any sanding marks.
Gradually the true nature of the fret board is revealed! It's quite exciting to think that this has been hidden from me for so many years, I never suspected the neck would look so different and the light colour will fit in nicely with the ivory racing stripes I have painted on the body
Once I was happy with the fret board I masked the neck up just leaving the frets exposed ready for crowning. I marked a indelible blue line on the top of each fret and then took a 3 sided file (with one edge ground smooth to avoid damaging the fret board) and started filing each of the frets.
The idea is to leave a thin crest or crown on each of the frets, the blue line shows this perfectly.
Finally I used some Nevr-Dull to polish a really nice shine onto each of the frets. the pictures below don't really do the neck justice. I will post some more at a later date.
One final thing, I put a coat of sander sealer over the fret board and left it to hand and dry overnight. I'm considering spraying a thin coat of lacquer over the face of the neck just to provide a little protection. and hopefully keep this thing looking great for many years to come.
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