Quote:
Originally Posted by Hot Vibrato
For those of you who do compression fretting, in what cases do you feel that it's inappropriate to plane a board, and when is it okay?
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I am going to give 2 cents worth, especially since I helped derail your post.
To start with, I am a designated Warranty repair agent for Martins Distributors in my country, I state this because I get people with older Martins bring me there guitars.
My customers know way more than me about whats original and whats not on vintage guitars.
For older guitars with solid truss block or no truss at all, I slip the fretboard, that is, I put the guitar into backbow with clamps and with heat slip the board.
I have also retro fitted older guitars with functional working truss rods
I have also retro fitted twin carbon fibre truss rods under the fretboard as well, so it retains the original look but with the strength of carbon fibre.
I give all the options of what I can do to the customer and they make the decision on which path to follow.
As far as compression fretting, unless we are epoxying (floating) the frets in, then all refrets IMO are compression fret jobs, it just varies to the degree of how much.
I always level a board out before I do any fret work, to me its kind of pointless doing otherwise.
Note: as Bruce mentioned on the other page, you cannot really plane a fretboard fitted with mother of pearl, it chips out, breaks off and yes damages your tools. Its small things like this that show a person knows what there doing.
Steve