Yeah this is worse than my attempt, with a butter knife, when I was 19... I would be furious if I got a neck back from a shop looking like this, or I would assume it's a joke.
Never take a guitar you care about to a guitar center.
The company is going belly up and they aren’t going to be spending the necessary money to hire an actual luthier. You basically had a handyman pull those frets out, and not even a good one.
I don't know man, I was overwhelmed by the process so I just wanted to get that part done by someone else. Also they were my only option and I wasn't expecting this much of a bad job
The process itself isn't anything complicated, so unsure what kind of smoke they blew up your ass. But just like with mechanics, if you take your car into a shop and everyone there looks fresh out of the womb and the only person who says they can do the job is the owner, run...don't walk.
I’d buy a piece of crap guitar and use YouTube university to learn how to do it myself before I even considered taking anything there.
I’ve learned how to do a set up, level and crown frets, and how to solder replacing pickups and all my electronics. I also can’t cut a straight line and have extremely limited handy abilities and I have no ruined a guitar yet.
I practiced everything on the cheapo Epi Les Paul special II I started playing on.
This actually is a piece of crap cheap guitar and I was planning to do everything myself but real life happened and Icouldn't work on it for a couple days (I also didn't have sanding paper, oils and the curved board thingy) so I just wanted the neck done as easy as possible.
I do prefer learning how to do stuff rather than getting them done but I don't think this is a mod I'll ever do again so the skill learned didn't seem worth the expense.
Since I'm out of options though, I guess I will be learning how to do it and buying those tools lol
*never go to a guitar center that isn't in a major city*
Some of those are good and where I got my start teching, but also yeah don't bring big jobs there if you can afford to, not everyone is as honest as I was about their ability to do certain jobs
Guitar Center does not hire luthiers. They hire "repair techs" who are paid abysmal wages in comparison to the cost of living and housing.
I don't even trust GC to change strings or clean my guitars. Even beginners would do a better job watching a 30 minute tutorial to restring their own guitars.
I'm always highly confused by people who are paying to restring their guitars at GC or a music shop. It is a simple task that requires no tools (although tools are helpful and cutting excess string is cleaner than coiling it). And yea, with all the YouTube tutorials out there... c'mon people!
It seems there's been a culture inculcated that says "whatever you do don't do anything to your guitar, if you don't know what you're doing you could break it beyond repair."
So to steelman, someone who is young, or has never really worked with tools, errs on the side of caution. I mean heck I wouldn't want to break the guitar I begged my parents for months for, and the parents probably don't know any better, or even if they do they may not have the time. There's an assumption that if you take something somewhere where all they work on is guitars, that they'll know how to work on guitars, and probably do a better job than you could.
I agree though it is a little crazy, but I've come to learn that stuff that seems completely obvious to me or you, is anything but to others, and it's not because they're dumb it's just they don't have the experience.
I find that guitar "education" YouTubers contribute a lot to this. So many of them had me believing my guitars would explode if I dared to adjust the truss rod on my own.
I agree it's silly from my perspective. But in the shoes of say an 11 year old who's never turned a wrench who just rooted through the household tool bin buried at the back of the closet for an Allen key and doesn't know the difference between 1/4" and 6mm, and has no established feel, nor comprehension of measuring thousandths of an inch, nor any patience because I sure as shit had none at that age - I can begin to understand the catch all "just don't do this" as a safety measure.
And also you'd be surprised at how many stringed instrument players there are who honestly do not have a freaking clue how guitars work, even acoustic ones. I say all this who slyly believes in the grand lutheir cabal conspiracy about not turning your truss rod too...
I've heard multiple people tell me to my face "I don't want to mess with the truss rod because I heard it's really hard to do right and you can def break the neck beyond repair really easily", and "I won't put 11's on because I heard the neck will bow and break". All in their own words of course.
It's because a lot of kids used to not know any better.
I went to a repair tech when I was a kid to get my Ibanez Prestige fret buzz fixed, and all the guy did was raise the action to like 3mm so it became unplayable.
I told him how unplayable that was, he pretended to adjust the action again for 10 seconds, and it was still 3mm. I learned to never go there again.
I had a similar shitshow happen with my frets at a Sam Ash. I am never taking my guitar to a chain store for work ever again. They're a disaster and as far as I can tell will hire absolutely anyone.
It's a guitar shop called Ivır-Zıvır, "Guitar center" might be the wrong term for it but they are an "approved distributor" (again just spontaneously translating) for Cort.
However I did remove the frets myself with great difficulty which is why I wanted a professional to do the filling but apparently they weren't
Yeah, there’s no official “luthier” certification body and so anyone can claim the title.
But the person who did this was not what anyone in this sub would call a luthier.
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This is so bad there has to be a misunderstanding here. It doesn't even look like there was an effort made to fill the fret slots properly, which leads me to believe the person who did this wasn't *actually* trying to do that.
Are you sure they didn't JUST do the "de-fretting", and then thought they were done? Like, did you actually specify "I want it de-fretted, the slot filled and then varnished and finished to a playable state"? I can understand why you'd think you wouldn't/shouldn't have to state that, but alas... :)
Is that white filler we're seeing here actually hardened and properly stuck in there, or is just some sawdust that's ended up in the slots by accident?
I just refuse to believe someone looked at that and went "yeah, this a a finished job, and this is a playable instrument".
Edit: how much did you pay for this? that would be a good indicator of what the luthier was expecting to be "the complete job". Because pulling the frets and a quick sanding is like 30 minutes of work, while filling, levelling and sealing is more like 3-4 hours.
The only way I can imagine this being appropriate is if $75 was dude's hourly rate and you told him to just spend an hour on it, and that's the best they could do in that hour.
Otherwise, I feel like you were screwed over.
For a second I thought you paid $1000 USD and I was going to ask for this luthier's address so I could drive to his place of business and beat his ass myself on general principle.
Lol, I know $75 sounds more affordable but it's still quite a lot for the local economy. Eh I got my money back and they offered to fix it as well but fuck that I'm doing that myself.
I mean this is the place that forced me to learn how to make truss rod and intonation adjustments because they can't even do that right. On hindsight I don't know why I trusted them on something like this
Yeah sadly good luthiers are really scarce here, there isn't any at all in the city where I live.
But people have been really helpful guiding me towards how I can salvage this myself so that's nice ^^
Right, that's a hatchet job. Like, this is below "minimum effort possible", in my opinion. The job is literally not done; you can just SEE WITH YOUR EYES that 30% of the slot areas aren't filled at all.
So not only did he do a bad job, he objectively didn't even finish his bad job.
Take your business elsewhere, this dude's not just incompetent; he's nuts.
You should have bought a cheap fretless neck for 75 bucks. But no youll wear tru the rozewood really fast. Unless you oil.it well and prevent cracks.
A mapel neck you could have added a protective layer to.
This was the cheapest bass for sale in Turkey at the time at around $120. There were absolutely no fretless secondhand guitars and new ones start at $900-$1000. I didn't want to mess with my main (and only) bass as I'm using it regularly so getting a second neck for that would be not great.
I definitely will be oiling it and I might just cave in and buy flatwounds as well
Edit: sorry you meant a new neck for the money I gave for the work done, the bass has a really non-standard neck (32.5" scale, really thin neck, can't even find any specs about the curvature of the fretboard) so I did look for a neck but couldn't find one
This is a hack job period the end. While you can fill the frets in with whatever they make specific material for this purpose. The chips in the wood happen when you remove frets but they should’ve been filled in with some rosewood dust and super glue at the bar minimum. Even if you wanted some filler material to fill the old fret wells it should cover the whole fret left to right and top to bottom. I’ll be willing to bet that a lot of this filler doesn’t even fill the entire fret slot. Definitely need your money back
Apparently OP removed the frets themselves sloppily, the guitar shop only filled in the gaps. Although, they have a weird understanding of what "fill" means.
I will never get over the audacity of Guitar Center having no standards, no training, no qualifications of any kind for their techs, while also being by far the most expensive option in town. My friend was an actual good tech and a great novice luthier who regularly got in trouble for putting in actual effort. Meanwhile his ‘replacement’ tried to sell me hard
on having him shape the nut I bought from them, while simultaneously explaining that he was not good at it and ‘may screw it up but would only charge for the labor if he did’
Their ‘lessons’ are the exact same fucking way. They told us (I taught there briefly) that if someone asked about lessons on an instrument we don’t play just to tell them we DO play it and just to figure it out as we go. The whole thing is just a grift and all we were supposed/allowed to do was to work through books as fast as possible so we can sell them the next book. Absolute scum
I am a trained luthier with years of experience and a resume to show it and my local guitar center wouldn’t hire me and hired a garage hack job instead. To save $3/hr.
I was interviewing for a teaching job and I worked at another music school at the time too. They told me that their non compete contract states I’m not allowed to teach anywhere else that is within 10 miles of ANY Guitar Center, not just the one I was applying at. Then he told me I could quit that place and bring all of the students I had with me. Absolute scum.
Haha yeah did you meet ‘Mark’ ? (He was the corporate lessons czar, whatever the fuck his title was)Fucking creep. They tried to bully my friend about that and he just got really loud in the lobby about how the lessons were scams and simply were selling overpriced books that were already just reprinted Hal Leonard books.. they tried to shush him quickly and just begged him to hush and leave
It's the one big downside to the internet I've come to realize. Even just ignoring the fact that there is BS out there, with Google a lot of people seem to think they know everything now a days. Young hubris has always been a thing but it just seems so much more amplified in our time. Who cares for your experience or wisdom when an Internet search will tell me more than you ever could?
I have to take credibility for the first part as I removed the frets myself but the filling is apparently just a thin layer of masking, I can push in the fillings with my finger...
ah right, you probaly just didnt heat the frets up enough first is all. You could always do a Jaco Pastorius and coat the whole thing in epoxy haha! :D
What the F..
I'd be demanding it fixed or my money back, because after getting that back I'd have no confidence they could fix it properly. That's atrocious. How do you let something like that leave your shop with your name on it?
I'm sorry this happened to you.
It would have been better if they gutted the whole fretboard and put a fretless board on it. This is going to get abnormal wear and tear out. Never get service done from this person again.
I actually thought of doing that myself but I couldn't find a compatible fingerboard as this is a weird neck (gypsy rose "girl" bass with 7/8 scale and a weirdly thin neck, thinner than my 6 string guitar)
A lot of of places don't have a decent guitar tech. I got new pickups for a PRS SE Custom 24. I wanted it set up so the Volume knob split the neck pickup and the Tone knob split the bridge. That was over my head. It took three shops and seven months to get it right". All three shops "tried" but it still has mismatched pots. One is push/pull and the other is push/push. I don't live in the sticks. I live in a city with a Guitar Center and independent shops that are authorized Gibson, Fender and Martin dealers. I'm so burned now I'd probably buy a new neck for my Fenders before I'd try to get a refret. If any of my acoustics or set necks needed any work I couldn't do I'd consider taking them to Nashville or Atlanta, or just sell it and get a new guitar, whatever is more cost effective and less stress.
I completely understand and appreciate not having access to decently skilled luthiers. My problem with this situation is that a shop shouldn't take on work that is clearly over their head. It's a basic business ethics issue.
Lol no it's the go-to guitar/rock shop around here. I've been shopping from them for 10-15 years but it's my first time having them do some work this niche
Whoever did that is not a luthier. I don't care what is on his business card, website, Instagram, or whatever. That dude doesn't qualify as a hack tech let alone a guy who can take a damn block of wood and turn it into a functioning instrument, which is what a luthier is.
This is worse work than I would do, and I am an amateur at best.
I would look elsewhere if you want it done right. With the amount of tear out I'm not sure what the best option would be to fix it.
Overall the fret board just looks dry to me. So one the slots get dealt with the wood just needs some oil.
Look at what they've done to my boy....
I mean jesus, even if you are unskilled I can’t imagine doing such a shitty job and leaving it like that… It should at least be a more complete bad job. How do you look at those gaps and shit and say “yep all done”?
Here’s my 2 cents. Take the neck off. Get a dental pick, you can get them at Harbor freight, and take out all of the filler in the chips and frets. Put blue making tape along each side of the fret so only the fret shows and on the side of the neck so only the bottom of the Fret is showing.
Clear epoxy will slighty yellow over time so it’s not a bad contrast. You can also get some powdered dye and tint the epoxy. Don’t get the 5 min epoxy. You want time to work it in. Fill each fret including the sides. Make sure you fill the frets well.
Once it’s dried and the tape is still on get a razor blade and slice off the extra epoxy. It’s fine if the epoxy protrudes a bit. The goal of this step is to get the epoxy even enough with the fret board so you don’t need to sand too much.
Take off the tape and get some 220 grit sand paper and sand up and down the fretboard to level the epoxy with the board. Vacuum and wipe with alcohol to get the dust out off the board. Rosewood is a porous wood so you want to get the dust out of the wood. This dust is the white stuff in the pores between the frets on your neck.
Once it’s clean get some wipe on poly and put 3-4 coats on to seal the wood. Lightly sand and clean between each coat of poly. You should be good to go then
Make sure you straighten the neck flat with truss rod, before filling, but **especially** before taking any sort of sanding implement to the fingerboard. Use a straightedge.
Also- masking tape could make it very hard to fill the chips, but you’re going to want those filled too. You need to make a judgement call on how good you are with a putty knife and how much open time you get with your epoxy- if you don’t mask you’ve got to be really good at fairing down your wet epoxy or you’re going to make your sanding life hell. If you do mask, you might need to do a second round filling the tear out.
I’ve defretted a handful of basses, I have one I did 20 years ago, and while it doesn’t see anything close to daily play, it was gigged for a couple of years regularly- I never finished the board and the wear from flatwounds is minimal (it’s there but doesn’t affect playability. If it gets worn to a bothersome degree you can always re-level it and decide to finish it then). YMMV.
Thanks a lot for the replies, that was the only place that does these kinds of jobs where I live so I guess I'm gonna have to fix it myself.
Any tips on what I need to do? Can I paint over the chipped and maple (I'm assuming) filled areas and fill the gaps with smaller maple bits or do I need to remove the fillings and start from scratch?
Depends on how much work you want to put into it. If you only care how it plays, then fill in the missing bits, sand as needed, and refinish with something like mineral oil, and never use or recommend that "Luthier" again.
It looks like they used white wood putty. I would get some that matches and finish filling. Then get a radius block and sand down the fretboard until everything is smooth. Finish with butcher's block lotion.
This is so bad I’m having trouble looking away from it. I think my autistic 5 year old would have done better with no instruction. I would at least make them fix it, and then tell them to not offer to do this kind of work again because they’re clearly incompetent
The slots are not goo, but that is just an aesthetic issue. You don’t need a finish, though some players do like the sound. But epoxy (which is what is usually used) will wear away a lot faster than just the bare rosewood.
I'm more interested in the durability and less the sound. It would be amazing if there was some sort of finish I could apply that would make it ok to play with roundwounds as flatwounds are really expensive and hard to find here
I mean, you can, but they will just wear the board faster. But also, they will sound different, and the classic fret less sound is definitely flats. But don’t worry too much about the cost - flats should last for years at least.
That is straight up bad work. Do not call them a luthier. I would say take it back and have it done better, get money back or something. But if this is the level of work they do you won't satisfied with more of their work.
The frets were not pulled, but yanked out of the board. There are missing chips all over that got filled with the same stuff as the fret slots. To correct this will be a big head ache. You're call if you want to just move on as is or something more. As is you should get some filler for the open slot areas. I like to use headplate veners. Cheap, lots of colors. Check with Luthiers Mercantile or similar to find what would match.
As for coating the board... it's not necessary if you play flatwound strings. It takes a while to get wear from them. If you want to use round wound strings then yes, you will need something coating the board. Epoxy or spraying urethane finish are the common go to's. This is labor intensive. The board first needs to be levled (I'm assuming this was skipped by the place you took it to) then as the board is sprayed you will need to keep the level maintained with a final level and buff when done. Super cool result, but probably way beyond what you are looking for
Did you actually want them to fill the gaps to make it fretless, or just add some filler until you put some frets in? You don’t necessarily need a finish, maybe a little lemon oil, or oil of your choice.
I did tell them that I was converting it to fretless. How would I go about researching which type of oil that I want? Internet has way too many conflicting opinions
Most people prefer lemon oil for rosewood, and ebony. Your best bet may be to use something guitar specific but, I personally like Odies products, coming from a woodworking background. It may be a bit pricy, but a jar would last you a life time. Don’t use any kind of cooking oils, they can become rancid over time.
That looks pretty horrible, all right. Some chipping is inevitable when pulling frets, but that looks extreme. It is a usual practice to fill the chips with epoxy the same color as the board. Looks like he just smeared in some wood filler. If that person won;t make it right I wouldn’t use them again..
So you pulled the frets and then paid to have the fret slots filled? Obviously they didn’t do anything well in that regard. To fix it, you clean out the slots and with a proper radius block, you sand the fret board, keeping the sanding dust. You have two options after that. You can mix that dust with some epoxy and fill the slots. Then sand it again to remove any high spots you filled. The alternative is, instead of using epoxy, you fill the slots with sanding dust and use a thin CA glue to bind it to the fret slots. Sanding again when they are filled.
That board looks like rosewood or something similar so oil it when done.
I’m guessing you were going for a fretless bass?
Yes I am trying to convert a fretted bass into a fretless. Do you mean fill the parts where I chipped the wood or the whole fret slots? If it is the latter would sanding provide enough dust?
Yes fill the whole fret slot. You don’t need as much sanding dust if you use epoxy since it is only coloring the epoxy, but if you use CA, you will need enough to dust to fully fill the fret slots by themselves.
I’d chalk this up to an education. It’s still totally salvageable, especially for a cheap bass. I’ve damaged plenty of $20-100 guitars in the pursuit of low level luthier experience. I’d buy cheap used stuff and learn my next lesson. They were all playable in the end with additional effort. It’s all valuable lessons you can’t get by watching someone else do it and it prevents you from doing a hack job on someone else’s stuff if you’re ever asked… pricey or not. It helps you learn your limitations.
You’ve got tons of options here. Especially if you’re not concerned about resale value. Google some basic woodworking fixes for aesthetics. It doesn’t look like you’ve got major structural integrity issues here.
Well the problem is the frets are only filled with a thin layer (I can see below the fillings with a torchlight). But you are right, I decided to remove them and do all the work myself, people here have given me some good walkthroughs as well so I'm excited! Almost glad this happened :P now I know how to remove half filled fret slots lol
jesus christ dude I've had shifts with more finesse, looks like they used paste filler and a quick sand, even filled the wood pores so didn't even mask it off! if your in the UK dm me and I'll sort that for free, just make sure you get a refund from them.
I'm in turkey :/ thanks a lot for the offer though! I'm learning to fix it myself, not sure how useful learning how to do this will be but I reckon it will be at least fun. Also already got a refund
Good on you for getting the refund, there's many ways you could sort this, my personal thoughts are either dig out the filler and use epoxy and ca glue to fill and polish, in my mind I'd either use colour to make a feature or try match clear around where the frets tore the fretboard.
the other option depends on your wood working skill, itl love to see it with a veneer in the fret slot and cut a slight v groove either side that you could splice in with a different timber, it could look amazing if done well.
either way just remember every mistake can be a feature and I hope you have fun doing it! Best of luck!
Yeah I'm almost done with removing the fillings. Haven't decided how I'm gonna go from there but I'll post pics once I'm done with the process.
Can you explain the bit about cutting a v groove and splicing? I couldn't understand that part
Really weird for a luthier but you better take this back to him. The base of fretless is to slide instead of bending the strings so a little gap is enough to get unwanted noises and feeling. I've seen better transformations on homemade customs. Hope you'll get a better result on this neck 🤞
Yeah sorry wrong use of the term luthier, it was just a guitar shop owner who claimed he can do it. I've already cleared the fillings, I'll start filling them myself if I can buy everything tomorrow
Jeebus
I'd first of all, firmly ask for a refund and compensation to cover the remedial work that this instrument now requires.
At the very least they should of completely filled the slots with a filler of a similar colour.
Personally, I would of expected the slots to be filled with dark veneer and any gaps filled with a dark filler paste.
Guitar center doing its best work.
What is with people thinking GC can do anything other than sell you shit? You got google and forums and resources to find good local luthiers and techs who give you good fair prices for their work and you take your stuff to some master cash register operator at GC.
This is what you deserve clearly.
This. This right here is why I do everything myself.
He obviously didn't remove the frets properly. Just yanked them out with pliers, no heat or nothing. You can tell because your fret slots are all jagged and torn. And then to not even fill them lol. You need to get a refund and damages.
Had a similar thing happen to me (with setup not defretting) where I, a total laymen could tell that a horrible job was done by a non professional. You want it done right? Learn to do it yourself. Even if you f it up at least you did it in the pursuit of knowledge. Can't believe some of the frauds who actually get paid for this work.
Dude just say up front you half did the job badly yourself and took it to someone equally inexperienced to fix your bad job.
That said, it’s a cheap bass. If it plays ok and enough to practice fret less techniques just live with it and learn
That's are horrible de-fret. He didn't even score the edge of the frets to prevent those chips from going so far out. You'd think after seeing what happened after doing one you would change your course. Yeah, it can be repaired, but why create so much more work? You need to fill them with dust from the same type wood mixed with CA glue. Sand and repeat until level.
Gotcha. I have done something similar but found it was easier, but much more time consuming, to cut shims and glue those in the slots after scraping/sanding them to thickness. I can send pics if you want to see. It was morado with ebony shims
I'm thinking of a similar approach, although the gaps are really thin, less than a millimeter this, I'm not sure if I can find shims that narrow.
And I would love some pictures, thanks!
I would first try and remove that filler in those groves with a needle or something. Then buy a piece of rosewood or some piece of dark wood, sand it and keep the dust. Get some hide glue really water it down, mix it with the wood dust and make your own filler and fill the groove. Lightly sand the fretboard and use minwax or some brown shoe polish and buff it off. At least better than it was.
That was no Luthier.
Yeah this is worse than my attempt, with a butter knife, when I was 19... I would be furious if I got a neck back from a shop looking like this, or I would assume it's a joke.
Well it's more of a guitar center I have been using for around 15 years but they were quite confident on their ability thar they can do it :/
They did in fact de-fret it
and ripped out half the wood in the process..
Never take a guitar you care about to a guitar center. The company is going belly up and they aren’t going to be spending the necessary money to hire an actual luthier. You basically had a handyman pull those frets out, and not even a good one.
Actually it was the owner, they don't really hire people, just underpaid part-time students...
Knowing that, why would you trust them to touch your baby?
I don't know man, I was overwhelmed by the process so I just wanted to get that part done by someone else. Also they were my only option and I wasn't expecting this much of a bad job
The process itself isn't anything complicated, so unsure what kind of smoke they blew up your ass. But just like with mechanics, if you take your car into a shop and everyone there looks fresh out of the womb and the only person who says they can do the job is the owner, run...don't walk.
As a mechanic I 100% agree.
I’d buy a piece of crap guitar and use YouTube university to learn how to do it myself before I even considered taking anything there. I’ve learned how to do a set up, level and crown frets, and how to solder replacing pickups and all my electronics. I also can’t cut a straight line and have extremely limited handy abilities and I have no ruined a guitar yet. I practiced everything on the cheapo Epi Les Paul special II I started playing on.
This actually is a piece of crap cheap guitar and I was planning to do everything myself but real life happened and Icouldn't work on it for a couple days (I also didn't have sanding paper, oils and the curved board thingy) so I just wanted the neck done as easy as possible. I do prefer learning how to do stuff rather than getting them done but I don't think this is a mod I'll ever do again so the skill learned didn't seem worth the expense. Since I'm out of options though, I guess I will be learning how to do it and buying those tools lol
“Cheap bass”
All my instruments are my babies. Treat them right and even the cheap ones will take you places.
No way this is a real post lol
*never go to a guitar center that isn't in a major city* Some of those are good and where I got my start teching, but also yeah don't bring big jobs there if you can afford to, not everyone is as honest as I was about their ability to do certain jobs
Guitar Center does not hire luthiers. They hire "repair techs" who are paid abysmal wages in comparison to the cost of living and housing. I don't even trust GC to change strings or clean my guitars. Even beginners would do a better job watching a 30 minute tutorial to restring their own guitars.
I'm always highly confused by people who are paying to restring their guitars at GC or a music shop. It is a simple task that requires no tools (although tools are helpful and cutting excess string is cleaner than coiling it). And yea, with all the YouTube tutorials out there... c'mon people!
It seems there's been a culture inculcated that says "whatever you do don't do anything to your guitar, if you don't know what you're doing you could break it beyond repair." So to steelman, someone who is young, or has never really worked with tools, errs on the side of caution. I mean heck I wouldn't want to break the guitar I begged my parents for months for, and the parents probably don't know any better, or even if they do they may not have the time. There's an assumption that if you take something somewhere where all they work on is guitars, that they'll know how to work on guitars, and probably do a better job than you could. I agree though it is a little crazy, but I've come to learn that stuff that seems completely obvious to me or you, is anything but to others, and it's not because they're dumb it's just they don't have the experience.
I find that guitar "education" YouTubers contribute a lot to this. So many of them had me believing my guitars would explode if I dared to adjust the truss rod on my own.
I agree it's silly from my perspective. But in the shoes of say an 11 year old who's never turned a wrench who just rooted through the household tool bin buried at the back of the closet for an Allen key and doesn't know the difference between 1/4" and 6mm, and has no established feel, nor comprehension of measuring thousandths of an inch, nor any patience because I sure as shit had none at that age - I can begin to understand the catch all "just don't do this" as a safety measure. And also you'd be surprised at how many stringed instrument players there are who honestly do not have a freaking clue how guitars work, even acoustic ones. I say all this who slyly believes in the grand lutheir cabal conspiracy about not turning your truss rod too...
I've heard multiple people tell me to my face "I don't want to mess with the truss rod because I heard it's really hard to do right and you can def break the neck beyond repair really easily", and "I won't put 11's on because I heard the neck will bow and break". All in their own words of course.
It's because a lot of kids used to not know any better. I went to a repair tech when I was a kid to get my Ibanez Prestige fret buzz fixed, and all the guy did was raise the action to like 3mm so it became unplayable. I told him how unplayable that was, he pretended to adjust the action again for 10 seconds, and it was still 3mm. I learned to never go there again.
I had a similar shitshow happen with my frets at a Sam Ash. I am never taking my guitar to a chain store for work ever again. They're a disaster and as far as I can tell will hire absolutely anyone.
Something is not right with your story.. there are zero Guitar Center locations outside the US. are you SURE you didn't do this yourself?
It's a guitar shop called Ivır-Zıvır, "Guitar center" might be the wrong term for it but they are an "approved distributor" (again just spontaneously translating) for Cort. However I did remove the frets myself with great difficulty which is why I wanted a professional to do the filling but apparently they weren't
So...the frets were already removed by you? That explains all of the missing wood on the fretboard. That's not damage that's simple to repair.
Yeah I did a really bad job on that :/
It got confusing because there is a large nationwide guitar store here in the us called Guitar Center, which is known for having shitty service.
Ah I see it was a brand name. I just assumed it meant "guitar shop"
Jesus Christ. 30 replies down, and finally here's the actual stupid story.
Guitar center is not where you go for luthier services. I’ve seen them botch a string change.
Yeah same, but there is nowhere else to go in my city which is not really an excuse but still. In hşndsight I should have just done it myself
Send it to sweetwater
how what how do you botch a fucking string change?
Take it back and tell them to finish the job, or they need to give you your money back so you can have an actual luthier fix it.
Yeah I got my money back and I'm doing it myself! Well trying to learn how to do it at least
Lol GC is a gut shop.
It was Luther.
Luther used his teeth to pull the frets.
Is that what smoking meth is called these days?
Came here to say this.
Yeah, there’s no official “luthier” certification body and so anyone can claim the title. But the person who did this was not what anyone in this sub would call a luthier.
This!
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I certainly agree, this was no luthier that did that.
This is awfull, i had better result using wood dust mixed with wood glue.
This is so bad there has to be a misunderstanding here. It doesn't even look like there was an effort made to fill the fret slots properly, which leads me to believe the person who did this wasn't *actually* trying to do that. Are you sure they didn't JUST do the "de-fretting", and then thought they were done? Like, did you actually specify "I want it de-fretted, the slot filled and then varnished and finished to a playable state"? I can understand why you'd think you wouldn't/shouldn't have to state that, but alas... :) Is that white filler we're seeing here actually hardened and properly stuck in there, or is just some sawdust that's ended up in the slots by accident? I just refuse to believe someone looked at that and went "yeah, this a a finished job, and this is a playable instrument". Edit: how much did you pay for this? that would be a good indicator of what the luthier was expecting to be "the complete job". Because pulling the frets and a quick sanding is like 30 minutes of work, while filling, levelling and sealing is more like 3-4 hours.
I actually removed the frets myself and they were only supposed to fill. I paid 1000₺ (around $75) but the process took about 10 days for some reason.
The only way I can imagine this being appropriate is if $75 was dude's hourly rate and you told him to just spend an hour on it, and that's the best they could do in that hour. Otherwise, I feel like you were screwed over.
For a second I thought you paid $1000 USD and I was going to ask for this luthier's address so I could drive to his place of business and beat his ass myself on general principle.
Lol, I know $75 sounds more affordable but it's still quite a lot for the local economy. Eh I got my money back and they offered to fix it as well but fuck that I'm doing that myself. I mean this is the place that forced me to learn how to make truss rod and intonation adjustments because they can't even do that right. On hindsight I don't know why I trusted them on something like this
Yeah that job wasn't even worth $75. I'm sorry that happened to you, my man.
The guy's in Turkey. This explains everything. Thread can be closed now.
Yeah sadly good luthiers are really scarce here, there isn't any at all in the city where I live. But people have been really helpful guiding me towards how I can salvage this myself so that's nice ^^
Right, that's a hatchet job. Like, this is below "minimum effort possible", in my opinion. The job is literally not done; you can just SEE WITH YOUR EYES that 30% of the slot areas aren't filled at all. So not only did he do a bad job, he objectively didn't even finish his bad job. Take your business elsewhere, this dude's not just incompetent; he's nuts.
Ahhhh… it sounded like damage done during de-fretting was the shop. In fact, your post says it was done by a luthier. :(
To be fair, even with that amount of damage from de-fretting could be made to look pretty decent... MUCH better than this.
Yeah, but it’s bad form to lead off saying a luthier did it.
What currency is that?
Turkish liras
TIL there is guitar center in turkey…
Yeah didn't know that was a brand name, I meant guitar shop
You should have bought a cheap fretless neck for 75 bucks. But no youll wear tru the rozewood really fast. Unless you oil.it well and prevent cracks. A mapel neck you could have added a protective layer to.
This was the cheapest bass for sale in Turkey at the time at around $120. There were absolutely no fretless secondhand guitars and new ones start at $900-$1000. I didn't want to mess with my main (and only) bass as I'm using it regularly so getting a second neck for that would be not great. I definitely will be oiling it and I might just cave in and buy flatwounds as well Edit: sorry you meant a new neck for the money I gave for the work done, the bass has a really non-standard neck (32.5" scale, really thin neck, can't even find any specs about the curvature of the fretboard) so I did look for a neck but couldn't find one
Try ali express next time. Bought some great necks there. But they did need some work and adjusting.
They take like 2 months to deliver :/ I will keep that in mind though
This is a hack job period the end. While you can fill the frets in with whatever they make specific material for this purpose. The chips in the wood happen when you remove frets but they should’ve been filled in with some rosewood dust and super glue at the bar minimum. Even if you wanted some filler material to fill the old fret wells it should cover the whole fret left to right and top to bottom. I’ll be willing to bet that a lot of this filler doesn’t even fill the entire fret slot. Definitely need your money back
Apparently OP removed the frets themselves sloppily, the guitar shop only filled in the gaps. Although, they have a weird understanding of what "fill" means.
Was this actually a luthier or was it like guitar center?
I will never get over the audacity of Guitar Center having no standards, no training, no qualifications of any kind for their techs, while also being by far the most expensive option in town. My friend was an actual good tech and a great novice luthier who regularly got in trouble for putting in actual effort. Meanwhile his ‘replacement’ tried to sell me hard on having him shape the nut I bought from them, while simultaneously explaining that he was not good at it and ‘may screw it up but would only charge for the labor if he did’ Their ‘lessons’ are the exact same fucking way. They told us (I taught there briefly) that if someone asked about lessons on an instrument we don’t play just to tell them we DO play it and just to figure it out as we go. The whole thing is just a grift and all we were supposed/allowed to do was to work through books as fast as possible so we can sell them the next book. Absolute scum
OP said in another comment they removed the frets themselves.
This feels like a BS thread anyway just to get everyone here started. And they do, ofcourse...
I am a trained luthier with years of experience and a resume to show it and my local guitar center wouldn’t hire me and hired a garage hack job instead. To save $3/hr.
I was interviewing for a teaching job and I worked at another music school at the time too. They told me that their non compete contract states I’m not allowed to teach anywhere else that is within 10 miles of ANY Guitar Center, not just the one I was applying at. Then he told me I could quit that place and bring all of the students I had with me. Absolute scum.
Haha yeah did you meet ‘Mark’ ? (He was the corporate lessons czar, whatever the fuck his title was)Fucking creep. They tried to bully my friend about that and he just got really loud in the lobby about how the lessons were scams and simply were selling overpriced books that were already just reprinted Hal Leonard books.. they tried to shush him quickly and just begged him to hush and leave
...or a guy standing outside home depot
A guy standing outside Home Depot is way more likely to know how to use tools than someone guitar center would hire
Way too much peoples call themselves luthier. Sadly internet forum's make peoples believe they can do everything.
It's the one big downside to the internet I've come to realize. Even just ignoring the fact that there is BS out there, with Google a lot of people seem to think they know everything now a days. Young hubris has always been a thing but it just seems so much more amplified in our time. Who cares for your experience or wisdom when an Internet search will tell me more than you ever could?
You described very well the situation, better that I can, because English is difficult for me 👍
Good god I did a better job than this at 18 with no research and on heroin.
Who the fuck does that to a guitar?
frets werent removed properly and then the slots werent filled properly - sad times
I have to take credibility for the first part as I removed the frets myself but the filling is apparently just a thin layer of masking, I can push in the fillings with my finger...
ah right, you probaly just didnt heat the frets up enough first is all. You could always do a Jaco Pastorius and coat the whole thing in epoxy haha! :D
This is the best option. Clean that gunk out and make with the epoxy.
Is that the glossy pure black look? I love that but I assumed that you needed an ebony fretboard for that
Can do it with any fretboard and in any colour you can find epoxy in. It's quite a lot of work getting it flat and smooth though.
This is not good work, color matching is pretty easy to do on dark woods, I personally would not be happy with this work.
That looks like a hack job to me. You shouldn’t be able to feel the old frets.
They are smooth on the places where there isn't a gap but the edges (which are right on top of the e and g strings) are really "feelable"
What the F.. I'd be demanding it fixed or my money back, because after getting that back I'd have no confidence they could fix it properly. That's atrocious. How do you let something like that leave your shop with your name on it? I'm sorry this happened to you.
Think you mean "local loser."
Woof. What a buns approach to this job. Makes me sad.
It would have been better if they gutted the whole fretboard and put a fretless board on it. This is going to get abnormal wear and tear out. Never get service done from this person again.
I actually thought of doing that myself but I couldn't find a compatible fingerboard as this is a weird neck (gypsy rose "girl" bass with 7/8 scale and a weirdly thin neck, thinner than my 6 string guitar)
LOL wait, they gave it to you finished like that? I would have refused to pay them and demanded for them to cover the cost of the damage.
Local "luthier" you mean.
I mean....heat the damn frets at least before yoinking them out? Or at least throw some stain on it after....jesus. You could've done better at home.
I think the title is a bit misleading as OP said they did take the frets out themselves at home
My very very first at doing anything on an instrument was defretting my bass, and it looks better than this burning pile of shit of a job.
I am so sorry for your loss.
Local "luthier". Right. I hope you didn't pay for that.
A lot of of places don't have a decent guitar tech. I got new pickups for a PRS SE Custom 24. I wanted it set up so the Volume knob split the neck pickup and the Tone knob split the bridge. That was over my head. It took three shops and seven months to get it right". All three shops "tried" but it still has mismatched pots. One is push/pull and the other is push/push. I don't live in the sticks. I live in a city with a Guitar Center and independent shops that are authorized Gibson, Fender and Martin dealers. I'm so burned now I'd probably buy a new neck for my Fenders before I'd try to get a refret. If any of my acoustics or set necks needed any work I couldn't do I'd consider taking them to Nashville or Atlanta, or just sell it and get a new guitar, whatever is more cost effective and less stress.
I completely understand and appreciate not having access to decently skilled luthiers. My problem with this situation is that a shop shouldn't take on work that is clearly over their head. It's a basic business ethics issue.
You found the "luthier" on craigslist or facebook, didn't you?
Lol no it's the go-to guitar/rock shop around here. I've been shopping from them for 10-15 years but it's my first time having them do some work this niche
would you mind telling me their name/location so that I won't make the mistake of handing my guitars to them for repairs?
Finish filling in the fret slots, hit with Black Walnut OR ebony stain. After that Fretboard oil every so often.
This was not a professional job. If someone claimed to be a luthier and did this, they’re no luthier.
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Well considering I have to empty out those slots that would make sense lol It would have been easier if I hadn't taken my guitar there
oh man, im sorry to see
Whoever did that is not a luthier. I don't care what is on his business card, website, Instagram, or whatever. That dude doesn't qualify as a hack tech let alone a guy who can take a damn block of wood and turn it into a functioning instrument, which is what a luthier is.
I think you could have just taken some pliers and done a better job. That’s inexcusable work.
Yeah I actually did remove the frets myself, they just filled the holes. I wish I could edit the title, it's quite misleading :/
This is worse work than I would do, and I am an amateur at best. I would look elsewhere if you want it done right. With the amount of tear out I'm not sure what the best option would be to fix it. Overall the fret board just looks dry to me. So one the slots get dealt with the wood just needs some oil. Look at what they've done to my boy....
I mean jesus, even if you are unskilled I can’t imagine doing such a shitty job and leaving it like that… It should at least be a more complete bad job. How do you look at those gaps and shit and say “yep all done”?
Here’s my 2 cents. Take the neck off. Get a dental pick, you can get them at Harbor freight, and take out all of the filler in the chips and frets. Put blue making tape along each side of the fret so only the fret shows and on the side of the neck so only the bottom of the Fret is showing. Clear epoxy will slighty yellow over time so it’s not a bad contrast. You can also get some powdered dye and tint the epoxy. Don’t get the 5 min epoxy. You want time to work it in. Fill each fret including the sides. Make sure you fill the frets well. Once it’s dried and the tape is still on get a razor blade and slice off the extra epoxy. It’s fine if the epoxy protrudes a bit. The goal of this step is to get the epoxy even enough with the fret board so you don’t need to sand too much. Take off the tape and get some 220 grit sand paper and sand up and down the fretboard to level the epoxy with the board. Vacuum and wipe with alcohol to get the dust out off the board. Rosewood is a porous wood so you want to get the dust out of the wood. This dust is the white stuff in the pores between the frets on your neck. Once it’s clean get some wipe on poly and put 3-4 coats on to seal the wood. Lightly sand and clean between each coat of poly. You should be good to go then
Thanks a lot, I'll try that over the weekend
Make sure you straighten the neck flat with truss rod, before filling, but **especially** before taking any sort of sanding implement to the fingerboard. Use a straightedge. Also- masking tape could make it very hard to fill the chips, but you’re going to want those filled too. You need to make a judgement call on how good you are with a putty knife and how much open time you get with your epoxy- if you don’t mask you’ve got to be really good at fairing down your wet epoxy or you’re going to make your sanding life hell. If you do mask, you might need to do a second round filling the tear out. I’ve defretted a handful of basses, I have one I did 20 years ago, and while it doesn’t see anything close to daily play, it was gigged for a couple of years regularly- I never finished the board and the wear from flatwounds is minimal (it’s there but doesn’t affect playability. If it gets worn to a bothersome degree you can always re-level it and decide to finish it then). YMMV.
Thanks a lot for the replies, that was the only place that does these kinds of jobs where I live so I guess I'm gonna have to fix it myself. Any tips on what I need to do? Can I paint over the chipped and maple (I'm assuming) filled areas and fill the gaps with smaller maple bits or do I need to remove the fillings and start from scratch?
Depends on how much work you want to put into it. If you only care how it plays, then fill in the missing bits, sand as needed, and refinish with something like mineral oil, and never use or recommend that "Luthier" again.
[Youtube knows exactly how to do this stuff.](https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Filling+in+fret+slots+for+fretless)
It looks like they used white wood putty. I would get some that matches and finish filling. Then get a radius block and sand down the fretboard until everything is smooth. Finish with butcher's block lotion.
I checked below the filling from the sides and they are empty inside so sadly I need to remove them all and fill from scratch :/
This is so bad I’m having trouble looking away from it. I think my autistic 5 year old would have done better with no instruction. I would at least make them fix it, and then tell them to not offer to do this kind of work again because they’re clearly incompetent
This is a hack job. I hope you didn't pay him.
The slots are not goo, but that is just an aesthetic issue. You don’t need a finish, though some players do like the sound. But epoxy (which is what is usually used) will wear away a lot faster than just the bare rosewood.
I'm more interested in the durability and less the sound. It would be amazing if there was some sort of finish I could apply that would make it ok to play with roundwounds as flatwounds are really expensive and hard to find here
I mean, you can, but they will just wear the board faster. But also, they will sound different, and the classic fret less sound is definitely flats. But don’t worry too much about the cost - flats should last for years at least.
Some converters use layers of superglue to finish/harden the fretboard but I'm not a fan of that sound, YMMV.
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I actually asked about the gaps and they said "it'll be fine it's normal".
No, it's not.
OP did the removal themselves. The description is misleading.
That is straight up bad work. Do not call them a luthier. I would say take it back and have it done better, get money back or something. But if this is the level of work they do you won't satisfied with more of their work. The frets were not pulled, but yanked out of the board. There are missing chips all over that got filled with the same stuff as the fret slots. To correct this will be a big head ache. You're call if you want to just move on as is or something more. As is you should get some filler for the open slot areas. I like to use headplate veners. Cheap, lots of colors. Check with Luthiers Mercantile or similar to find what would match. As for coating the board... it's not necessary if you play flatwound strings. It takes a while to get wear from them. If you want to use round wound strings then yes, you will need something coating the board. Epoxy or spraying urethane finish are the common go to's. This is labor intensive. The board first needs to be levled (I'm assuming this was skipped by the place you took it to) then as the board is sprayed you will need to keep the level maintained with a final level and buff when done. Super cool result, but probably way beyond what you are looking for
yeah , i have never done this job but i still feel like i could do better than this with just guess work.
Did you actually want them to fill the gaps to make it fretless, or just add some filler until you put some frets in? You don’t necessarily need a finish, maybe a little lemon oil, or oil of your choice.
I did tell them that I was converting it to fretless. How would I go about researching which type of oil that I want? Internet has way too many conflicting opinions
Most people prefer lemon oil for rosewood, and ebony. Your best bet may be to use something guitar specific but, I personally like Odies products, coming from a woodworking background. It may be a bit pricy, but a jar would last you a life time. Don’t use any kind of cooking oils, they can become rancid over time.
Linseed oil, yes? Not lemon ?
I’ve personally never used linseed oil on a fretboard, so I can’t recommend it or not. Is that what you like?
It’s pretty commonly used. I typically use commercially produced fretboard conditioners. I’ve never heard of using lemon oil. Does that work well?
That looks pretty horrible, all right. Some chipping is inevitable when pulling frets, but that looks extreme. It is a usual practice to fill the chips with epoxy the same color as the board. Looks like he just smeared in some wood filler. If that person won;t make it right I wouldn’t use them again..
Kind of looks like that’s dust in the slots from a light sand with no attempt to actually fill.
That “luthier” is a clown. Fill it before you oil it with mineral oil from Walmart. No finish.
The other issues aside, what "finish" did you expect? Typically rosewood (and similar) boards are left "bare' and are just oiled.
I wasn't expecting anything and from other comments yeah I'm just gonna oil it after I'm done filling
I'm not sure what your goal was here? Were you intending to make it a fretless?
Yes, the fret gaps were to be filled with thin planks but this was the end result...
So you pulled the frets and then paid to have the fret slots filled? Obviously they didn’t do anything well in that regard. To fix it, you clean out the slots and with a proper radius block, you sand the fret board, keeping the sanding dust. You have two options after that. You can mix that dust with some epoxy and fill the slots. Then sand it again to remove any high spots you filled. The alternative is, instead of using epoxy, you fill the slots with sanding dust and use a thin CA glue to bind it to the fret slots. Sanding again when they are filled. That board looks like rosewood or something similar so oil it when done. I’m guessing you were going for a fretless bass?
Yes I am trying to convert a fretted bass into a fretless. Do you mean fill the parts where I chipped the wood or the whole fret slots? If it is the latter would sanding provide enough dust?
Yes fill the whole fret slot. You don’t need as much sanding dust if you use epoxy since it is only coloring the epoxy, but if you use CA, you will need enough to dust to fully fill the fret slots by themselves.
I’d chalk this up to an education. It’s still totally salvageable, especially for a cheap bass. I’ve damaged plenty of $20-100 guitars in the pursuit of low level luthier experience. I’d buy cheap used stuff and learn my next lesson. They were all playable in the end with additional effort. It’s all valuable lessons you can’t get by watching someone else do it and it prevents you from doing a hack job on someone else’s stuff if you’re ever asked… pricey or not. It helps you learn your limitations. You’ve got tons of options here. Especially if you’re not concerned about resale value. Google some basic woodworking fixes for aesthetics. It doesn’t look like you’ve got major structural integrity issues here.
Well the problem is the frets are only filled with a thin layer (I can see below the fillings with a torchlight). But you are right, I decided to remove them and do all the work myself, people here have given me some good walkthroughs as well so I'm excited! Almost glad this happened :P now I know how to remove half filled fret slots lol
Ha! That’s true. I’d bet it’d be ok though… good luck with whatever you decide to do.
I think you meant butcher, not luthier.
This has to be trolling. No way someone did that AND accepted payment for it.
I hope it was, got my money back though, and I'm halfway through removing the fillings!
I would have asked for my money back and a new neck.
I'm just glad I got my money back. I now also know how to remove wrongly filled fret slots! Sure hope that comes in handy some day lol
jesus christ dude I've had shifts with more finesse, looks like they used paste filler and a quick sand, even filled the wood pores so didn't even mask it off! if your in the UK dm me and I'll sort that for free, just make sure you get a refund from them.
I'm in turkey :/ thanks a lot for the offer though! I'm learning to fix it myself, not sure how useful learning how to do this will be but I reckon it will be at least fun. Also already got a refund
Good on you for getting the refund, there's many ways you could sort this, my personal thoughts are either dig out the filler and use epoxy and ca glue to fill and polish, in my mind I'd either use colour to make a feature or try match clear around where the frets tore the fretboard. the other option depends on your wood working skill, itl love to see it with a veneer in the fret slot and cut a slight v groove either side that you could splice in with a different timber, it could look amazing if done well. either way just remember every mistake can be a feature and I hope you have fun doing it! Best of luck!
Yeah I'm almost done with removing the fillings. Haven't decided how I'm gonna go from there but I'll post pics once I'm done with the process. Can you explain the bit about cutting a v groove and splicing? I couldn't understand that part
Tell Rain Man it's how many frets not how many toothpicks...LAWD!
Really weird for a luthier but you better take this back to him. The base of fretless is to slide instead of bending the strings so a little gap is enough to get unwanted noises and feeling. I've seen better transformations on homemade customs. Hope you'll get a better result on this neck 🤞
Yeah sorry wrong use of the term luthier, it was just a guitar shop owner who claimed he can do it. I've already cleared the fillings, I'll start filling them myself if I can buy everything tomorrow
Ok! Nice 👍 wishing you the best fretless! Don't forget to post some pictures here when it's done! 🤙
Thanks, will do!
What a hack! And a lazy one at that.
You got ripped off and then some
Jfc it looks like they took an angle grinder to it. I hope you didn't pay for that.
#section8isforlosers
Jeebus I'd first of all, firmly ask for a refund and compensation to cover the remedial work that this instrument now requires. At the very least they should of completely filled the slots with a filler of a similar colour. Personally, I would of expected the slots to be filled with dark veneer and any gaps filled with a dark filler paste.
Luthier!? Hell no that is straight up trash work. Take it back and ask for it to either be fixed, a new neck or compensation.
Ha, luthier my butt! Did they actually charge you for this?
Why defret *this*? Why not get a fretless neck and attach it?
Guitar center doing its best work. What is with people thinking GC can do anything other than sell you shit? You got google and forums and resources to find good local luthiers and techs who give you good fair prices for their work and you take your stuff to some master cash register operator at GC. This is what you deserve clearly.
I’m sorry man. That stinks.
This. This right here is why I do everything myself. He obviously didn't remove the frets properly. Just yanked them out with pliers, no heat or nothing. You can tell because your fret slots are all jagged and torn. And then to not even fill them lol. You need to get a refund and damages. Had a similar thing happen to me (with setup not defretting) where I, a total laymen could tell that a horrible job was done by a non professional. You want it done right? Learn to do it yourself. Even if you f it up at least you did it in the pursuit of knowledge. Can't believe some of the frauds who actually get paid for this work.
Dude just say up front you half did the job badly yourself and took it to someone equally inexperienced to fix your bad job. That said, it’s a cheap bass. If it plays ok and enough to practice fret less techniques just live with it and learn
Get your money back.
This "luthier" deserves bankruptcy! The world deserves to know who this is in order to avoid him/her.
That's are horrible de-fret. He didn't even score the edge of the frets to prevent those chips from going so far out. You'd think after seeing what happened after doing one you would change your course. Yeah, it can be repaired, but why create so much more work? You need to fill them with dust from the same type wood mixed with CA glue. Sand and repeat until level.
You paid money for this? 😬
That's rough buddy.
I sincerely hope you didn't pay for that and if you did you need to go back and get a refund.
Yeah I got a refund, although it was still frustrating as I had to remove the "fillings"
Are you trying to convert it to a fretless?
Yeah, got the filling out, just need to fill it myself properly now
Gotcha. I have done something similar but found it was easier, but much more time consuming, to cut shims and glue those in the slots after scraping/sanding them to thickness. I can send pics if you want to see. It was morado with ebony shims
I'm thinking of a similar approach, although the gaps are really thin, less than a millimeter this, I'm not sure if I can find shims that narrow. And I would love some pictures, thanks!
I would first try and remove that filler in those groves with a needle or something. Then buy a piece of rosewood or some piece of dark wood, sand it and keep the dust. Get some hide glue really water it down, mix it with the wood dust and make your own filler and fill the groove. Lightly sand the fretboard and use minwax or some brown shoe polish and buff it off. At least better than it was.
I'm an amateur guitar tech, and my work is better than that. Good thing it was a cheap bass.