Fret slots cut too wide!

After filling in some chips in the fretboard that was caused by removing the old frets with ebony wood dust and superglue, I was too slack in keeping an eye on excess superglue. I later discovered that lots of superglue had built up in the fret slots and I tried slicing away at it with a hobby knife. I found using the hobby knife was ineffective and decided to re-cut the fret slot with a coping saw, yes I finally removed the superglue that would prevent the fret from properly being seated but now the the fret slot is too wide meaning that the new frets won't have any wood to get a grip on (I tested this).

So I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to fix this? A possible fix that's floating around in my head is using black epoxy to fill the slot and then re-cut the slot? Yeah nah?

What have I gotten myself into.

Can't help, but to answer your last question.

The fertiliser business :D

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Originally Posted by Joe3334

After filling in some chips in the fretboard that was caused by removing the old frets with ebony wood dust and superglue, I was too slack in keeping an eye on excess superglue. I later discovered that lots of superglue had built up in the fret slots and I tried slicing away at it with a hobby knife. I found using the hobby knife was ineffective and decided to re-cut the fret slot with a coping saw, yes I finally removed the superglue that would prevent the fret from properly being seated but now the the fret slot is too wide meaning that the new frets won't have any wood to get a grip on (I tested this).

So I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to fix this? A possible fix that's floating around in my head is using black epoxy to fill the slot and then re-cut the slot? Yeah nah?

What have I gotten myself into.

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Ouchy.
The coping saw was a bad choice, you could fill with epoxy but you would need to get a proper fretsaw to recut, and you’ll need to be able to remeasure your fret slot positions accurately.
You’ll need to mask off the sides of the board to retain the epoxy in the slots and insure that you lay enough epoxy in there to fill it and leave a bead. You can then sand the bead down so that the board is flush again, then recut.

The fret should cover the epoxy so it should be invisible if you are careful in the slotting and use a dedicated fret slotting saw

its either that or re-board if you aren’t sure of how well you can achieve the above.

its a very fiddley fix but it is doable, you’ll need to set up some form of a slotting jig and make sure the you can cut the slots square to the Center line of the board.

edit: http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...=FrankenWashie

about page 3 or 4 you can see the jig I built for marking and slotting fretboards fron scratch, to give you an idea of what I am talking about above.

And not any fret saw but a proper luthier fret saw, that's the right width for your choice of fret wire.

I'm no expert in this, but might it be easier to install the frets at the same time as the epoxy? Filling with epoxy first, I was thinking that you'll have a slot with very hard sides, that might then crack rather than accept the barbs on the tang. Or the barbs would just score a groove down the sides of the epoxy instead of the wood being compressed and then rebounding to hold the fret in place. Any thoughts, FW or others? Either way it's going to be fiddly. When doing the epoxy and frets together you'd have to clamp the fret in place at the same time you are gluing, and you'll want to remove excess glue and prevent the clamp from being stuck to the fret or fretboard.

You could probably use or modify a capo to use as a fret clamp, provided it had the same curvature as the fretboard. You'd probably only want to do one fret at a time.

Time to go fretless?

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Originally Posted by Fretworn

Time to go fretless?

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Microtonal?

Fill the fret slots with a light coloured timber mate and then use as a Slide Guitar.

A boat-building (and bass playing) friend saw my post on this and agreed with standard epoxy being rather brittle for slotting and banging frets into. I quote:

"The solution would be in the exact epoxy used. Epoxy resin in tubes from the shop is typically very heavily filled with silica gel, which makes for a very hard and brittle mix just as you say, and also a viscous highly thixotropic resin before it cures. But if the guy finds a boat shop, and gets a small pot of pure resin plus different fillers, then the end result can have very different properties. If the mix uses microfibres then the resulting cured nix will be rather flexible. If he uses microballons (which are deep red) then the result won't be as hard and brittle as silica gel, a lot less dense and much more easily worked. For the application I would think about two thirds microfibres one third microballoons mixed to as thick a paste as workable would be good.

It will also flow out of the fret slots much more easily, not being thixotropic, but here masking tape (over the ends of the slots) plus making the mix as thick as possible will be his friend"

So I'd suggest finding a chandlers or chandlery website and seeing what you can find there. You want to find something that's got about the same amount of give as the fretboard.

I will be testing with some 2-part epoxy later today. Stay tuned for pics.

I think epoxy will chip out and cause issues.
Is this an old guitar or a current kit build?
Is the fretboard ebony , rosewood ...?
You may have luck with epoxy, but:
I think the only real solutions might be - thin slivers of fretboard timber and glue them in and reslot
Or new fretboard, not as hard as it sounds

I know I said I'd post pics tonight but you know.... work.... and stuff.... I will definitely post before and after pics tomorrow.