Operation Delta Foxtrot

[trowaclown]

De
Fret

Yes here it is! This is a little article on how Yong C defretted his Squier Vintage Modified Jazz by himself. Before you read on, note that:

1. Pictures were all taken with a film point-and-shoot, and the lack of macro made about half the pictures unuseable.
2. This is not meant as a guide of any sort. Do anything to your bass at your own risk!
3. Pictures shown here have been uploaded to my geocities account, so anyone who wishes to use them, please host them yourself, lest I run out of bandwidth.

Background:
Why do a self-defret? I actually told my drummer and singer that I was gonna send it to KC for the defret and finishing. They asked how much it'd cost, and I said $350. They asked how much my bass cost, and I said $480... Well, the math doesn't quite add up to justify a professional set-up, so there.

Materials:
-Soldering iron from Homefix: $12
-Polyurethane from Homefix: $16
-Epoxy from Homefix: $4
-Brush from NTUC: $1
-Nipper from NTUC: $3
-Sanding block and veneers from http://www.lmii.com/: $50
-Sandpaper of various grits from mama shop: $0.40 each
-New strings from .: welcome to red dot music red dot music $64
-Bone nut and setup from Guitar Connection: $90
-Jackknife: Free from Chong Pang Warrant Officers' and Specialists' Mess
-Penknife: Koped from Papa's pencil case

Here's the original bass, strung up with hot pink DR strings.

First I removed the strings, as shown below.

I then began defretting. I heated a fret up at one end with a soldering iron to make it expand and melt any glue underneath, then stuck my jackknife underneath to pry out the edge of the fret. The jackknife blade is thin and strong enough to do that, unlike a normal penknife. One there is enough bit of fret for my nipper to grab properly, I would take over with my nipper, and heat the rest of the fret up slowly before pulling out the entire fret. Kinda like sex, the first time is always the best, as shown below.

(Nah I'm kidding. Still a virgin, still a virgin.)

Then went on with all the rest of the frets. The easiest fret took less than a minute, while the most stubborn took my around 15 minutes to remove. Along the way, my soldering iron slipped twice, once burning the wood, and the other time melting some paint that belongs to the block inlays. Heart pain, I tell ya. After around 2 hours, inclusive of rests in between, the results are out below.

 

[trowaclown]

Next step was to remove all knobs and mask the body and headstock, to prevent unnecessary dust and scratches from invading the bass. Hopeless, it turned out. My bass acquired mysterious scratches and little cracks on its finish when I removed the masking tape in the end. Still, the dust prevention worked.

The neck actually felt pretty rough after fret removal, although there was no chipping involved. I used the sanding block with sandpaper to smoothen it a little. Then I tried fitting the veneers into the slots left behind. Thank ye gods the maple and ebony ones all fitted perfectly, with their thicknesses of 1/40 inches. I chose the maple one, because Mama popped into my room and said that subtle is good. So maple it is!

What I basically did here was to cut the maple into thin strips, then fit them into the slots I had cleaned out with a penknife. With the proper measurements, I then cut the strips exactly long enough to fit into the slots without touching the binding. The strips weren't shaped at the bottom like what some people do. Instead, I trusted the epoxy to fill up any space in the bottom. I held the strip down for about 2 minutes each until the epoxy hardened just enough to hold it down, before doing the next "fret". After each "fret", I'd return to the previous ones to push and tighten the veneers some more. You can see that the wood is coloured lighter on the sides of the neck. This is because the radiused sanding block I used to do some preliminary sanding is 10 inches in radius, while my neck was originally 9.5 inches in radius, so the sides got more sanding at the start and the polyurethane finish was sanded off there first.

 

[trowaclown]

The epoxy was left to dry for 48 hours before I started work again. I used the penknife to remove as much wood as I could before I used the sanding block to begin my neck leveling/reradiusing. Believe me, it was a hell lot of work sanding, using my vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dust, then changing paper, before sanding again. Those guys who have posted their defretted projects on forums I've read always say "apply elbow grease liberally". That's an understatement. It was a HELL lot of work. But I removed any marks my jackknife left behind, and exposed new paint from the previous layer that I melted. Results are below:

At this point in time....I ran out of film. I basically tried to use my remaining epoxy to finish my fretboard (because it's maple) and ended up wasting 4 days sanding them away. In the end, I opted to buy polyurethane from Homefix to finish it. It ain't perfect, but it looks just like the original. Because of the failed epoxy, my maple veneers somehow got stained, so they don't look as subtle as I wish they were.

With the defret done, I was anxious to get it strung up and playing again, so I approached KC. He quoted some price for the set up, but added the nut material price, and added the price for cutting a blank nut, before giving me a $5 discount. I was quite unhappy about this, because this was how I was quoted the price for defret as well, what with the defret job itself, then the refinishing costs, then a set up and nut fitting price.

Instead, I asked my cousin (a guitarist) for recommendations. He recommended Beez, who in turn pointed me to Kevin from Guitar Connection. Kevin's first diagnosis was "Eh your bass neck is warped leh. You didn't level it properly!" Like any NSF (I was still serving the nation then), my first reaction was a series of phrases that went through my mind. Still, Kevin said he'd try, and gave me a single direct quotation for a set up plus a blank bone nut fitting, and a seperate quotation for relevelling the neck. I decided not to, so it was Kevin then!

True to his words, my bass neck wasn't levelled properly, as I found out when I took my bass back. The upper registers buzzed very loudly in some spots (looking back, that was the place where I put the least attention into sanding). Still, no point spending more on this first bass, so I took it as it was. When I went home I set the string height a tiny bit lower, to make the action more userfriendly, and that's that. Questions?

 

[dir]

Great job man, was it really worth the effort though? Eh, I guess that's hard to tell. Still, it must've been one heck of a project.

 

[cherns]

Thanks for sharing!

One problem I faced with the defretting a jazz neck is the sanding. You need to be c*ck sure that your neck has been reset (i.e. dead flat) before you begin sanding, if not you're going to be in for a world of pain re-levelling everything.

Also, another problem is that I realised no matter how much I tried, I could never sand down the whole length of the neck equally with each pass... so that meant the bottom and top part of the fretboard were always a little less sanded than the middle potion. It took me a good week to get everything sanded down flat.

I noted that you used poly to coat your freboard. Is it the spray on kind? If it is, you'll probably need a good 4-5 coats to protect your fretboard (remember to sand lightly in between coats). Any less and it won't last.

2 things you will want to do differently next time you try this
1. Remove the neck from the body
2. Wet-sand (i.e. soak your sandpaper in water before sanding) for faster results, and no airborne dust.

 

[Dolwood]

Btw...Why dun u Remove the neck from the body??Easier to do & handle it lor.

 

[itzs]

Erm, just a thought. If cost was an issue, wouldn't it be easier to sell this and get a squire vintage modified fretless instead?

Cool project nonetheless. =)

 

[trowaclown]

Thanks for reading!

dir: I dunno myself man. But I reckon it'll make a good conversation piece when I grow old.

cherns: Oh no never again if I can help it. Anyway, I used a brush on polyurethane for a thicker coat, before sanding it down to reach a consistent level of smoothness. What did you use to guage the neck level anyway? A straight edge? I used some metal rule I found at home, cos a straight edge would be too expensive.

cherns+Dolwood: The thing was done on a desk in my room, so I figured that leaving the neck on would help me get a better grip, with more mass giving more stability too. With the resultant scratches....yeah it's better to remove the neck.

itzs: Nah. A fretted one has the nice block inlays with the nice maple neck and body.