Wonky frets on an Ibanez

[Freeman Keller]

The work order on this Ibanez S521 said "some of the frets are lifting off the fretboard" Yup, sure are, every one of them

 

 

According to Ibanez this particular guitar has a 400 mm (16 inch) fretboard radius. Every fret is tight on the ends but has a 6 or 8 thousands gap in the center. The tops are uneven, the ends are sharp, and with the extremely low action this guy had the little guitar is a buzz bomb. I asked him how long its been this way, he said he thought for a long time (maybe from the factory?).

 

I gave him four options -

 

- return to Ibanez for warranty repair. Unfortunately he isn't the original owner, its slightly more than a year old and who sends in those cards anyway?

- get his Ibanez dealer to get a new factory neck for it - have me or the dealer install it, which probably will require some fret work and setup. Doesn't want to do that

- try to press the frets into the slots and glue them. That may or may not work, but its worth a try

- pull the frets and replace them. I know I can do a better job than trying to glue the old ones but this is considerably more money

 

He opted for option 3.

 

So before I fix it, lets hazard a guess why this happened. 16 inch is a fairly rare radius for an electric guitar, most are 7 or 9 or 12. If I put my little fret cauls on the board (actually the frets but they don't want to balance for a picture) it looks like this

 

 

Thats 9, 12 and 16 inch radius, front to back. What I'm guessing happened is they were all set up in the little factory in Indonesia to press 12 inch fretboards, the frets were radiused and the caul in the press. They just pressed them into a 16 inch board leaving the centers high. You could actually more or less "level" the tops of the frets (or just leave them, this is only a $400 guitar). The fact that the ends are very sharp means the guitar is under humidified and the f/b has shrunk - probably making it worse. Thats why I told him that it should be a warranty repair - however he would rather give money to me.

 

OK, so the fix was pretty straightforward. I use a drill press to press frets - its not the best method but I'm too cheap to buy an arbor press just for a few boards. In this picture the clamps behind the pressing caul are holding a little bar of aluminum on a couple of frets that have been pressed. I wicked a small line of water thin CA on each side of the fret - capillary action will pull it into the slot - press the fret down and clamped it

 

 

 

Repeat 24 times. When the glue has set level and crown in the usual fashion

 

 

Now I can't get an 0.002 feeler gauge under the fret - its down tight

 

 

Put it all back together, do the setup (remember the frets are now a bit lower and a different radius), and this little puppy is ready to shred again

 

 

Wonder how many other guitars were made on that day..............

[Grant Harding]

Nice work! You always make it look so easy.

 

So the factory frets weren't glued? Is that the norm or just a less expensive thing?

[gardo]

That's a good looking guitar,which is one more reason not to buy with your eyes.

[video=youtube_share;oDIrOE_fnl8]

[badpenguin]

I actually have one of them. I have had exactly zero issues with the frets. Every one is tight, and near flawless. It was NOS from a pawn shop, and I would buy another if I needed another. I personally think it's one of the better offering from Ibanez Indonesia at an affordable price.

[DeepEnd]

And Freeman saves the day again. As Grant said, you make it look easy.

[Grant Harding]

I noticed that you missed several of my steps, such as trying to disguise the CA that has wicked out into the fingerboard. Also I don't see any pieces of masking tape embedded in CA.

[Freeman Keller]

Nice work! You always make it look so easy.

 

So the factory frets weren't glued? Is that the norm or just a less expensive thing?

 

 

Most factory fret jobs are not glued, and different people will do different things. It is pretty common on refrets to have some sort of glue in the slot - HHG, AR or maybe CA. I usually put two small drops of CA in the slots - I rely on any repair tech that knows what she is doing to use heat if she has to pull them in the future. In this case the glue was a necessity to hold them down.

 

(I also told the owner that if I glued them it would be somewhat harder to refret in the future and might do some damage to the board)

[Freeman Keller]

That scrapes off easily with a box cutter blade and a little steel wool. And I try to not get CA on finish or in any masking tape but sometimes stuff happens

[Freeman Keller]

Any thoughts about what might be going on here? Every fret is approximately the same amount high in the middle and they sure seem to fit my 12 inch caul. The only other things I could think of is that the center of the slot wasn't deep enough and the fret bottomed out (but when I pressed them in the seemed to go down fine) or that the f/b was just so dry that somehow that has something to do with it (there were sharp frets - mostly at the heel and nut

[badpenguin]

I think it may have been early in the production run, for the frets to so evenly F'ed up. Sometimes numbers get... "misplaced" until QC actually does their job.

[Les Paul Lover]

Good job.

 

I wish I had the fret press to deal with my own raised frets issues last night.