Repair Fretboard Divots

[Rocky Dijohn]

My old parlor guitar has fingertip wear in the lower areas. I guess I would call them divots. I would rather keep the guitar all original instead of putting a new fretboard on it. Is there some way to "fix" those divots? Maybe add some wood filler to the holes and then sand them flush?

[godfreydaniel]

A very good, well known repairman did that to one of my guitars (without my asking!) and it came out great. I have no idea what he used as filler.

[John Arnold]

Standard practice is to use wood dust and epoxy or CA. The problem is that it has no grain, and tends to get shiny from wear. I prefer to rout a rectangular slot from fret to fret and inlay matching wood, usually about 1/16" deep. The result is virtually invisible.

[fazool]

I have had exceptional success using matching sawdust. There is a technique I've found that helps.

Make fine sawdust (using say 600 grit sandpaper) and coarse dust using (say 80 grit paper). Mix those together so you have a blend of coarse and fine sawdust.

Use regular and ultra thin CA glue.

Put a drop of regular gluein the hole, sprinkle sawdust in. Press the sawdust in firmly with a punch or dowel - really packing it tight.

Drizzle a tiny bit of ultra thin CA which wicks in to bond all the dust particles.

Do this in layers depending how deep your divots are - I go for about 1/16" per layer.

At the end pack it super firmly again and let it mushroom up and over the edge, even if some glue bonds there thats OK.

Use a single edge razor blade as a cabinet scraper and scrape with the grain. This will also help the visual appearance to match a grainy pattern.

Finish with 0000 steel wool - polishing only with the grain.

I've done this numerous times and it generally comes out looking 100% invisible and perfect.

It's my favorite "restoration hack"