Questions on fretting a guitar with a finished fingerboard

[Pete Halliday]

I'm building a bass that has a maple neck and fingerboard and was planning to use Tru-Oil over an amber stain for both. I was originally thinking that the finishing should take place prior to fretting, but if that is the order of operations, what is the best way to clean up the fret ends without marring the finish? Or would it make more sense to finish the face of the fretboard first, fret, clean up ends, and then finish the neck? Or all finishing after fretting? The last option there seems like it would be hard to get the stain on the fretboard even and likely the finish as well. Similarly, what techniques would be used to re-fret a finished neck like on a Tele or Strat? I'm hoping that I can learn from other people's experience here before making my own mistakes. Maybe there's a reason I've always used ebony in the past...

[Rodger Knox]

I slot the fretboard first, then bind, then apply finish. The top of the binding gets covered, but it is not necessary to completely cover the binding, that gets done with the neck.
Clean out the slots, install frets, bevel and dress the ends. I tape off the board on both sides of the fret for this operation.
Glue the fretboard to the neck, apply finish to the neck and binding. This allows you to blend the fretboard finish with the neck finish.
I'm not sure I'd recommend this sequence as it is based on the way I build, and depends on other operations such as installing frets. I press them in and that's much easier to do with the tools I use before it's attached to the neck, so my sequence is dictated by that constraint.

[Peter Wilcox]

I've made a number of Fender style maple necks. My way works for me, but of course there may be better ways to do it. Mine have a lacquer finish, but you could probably use the same method with Tru oil. I make the complete neck and finish sand, then cut the fret slots and install frets. I tape between the frets, then level, dress the ends and polish (important to have the tape on unfinished wood or metal filings will stain it.) Then spray the lacquer, and when dry (but within a day or so) scrape it off the frets with a tool I think I got from a post here by Mark Swanson - take a nail and file a fret-shaped notch into the head and pull it across the frets, scraping the lacquer off. I suppose you could do this with a Tru oil finish too if necessary.

Alternatively, I made a mahogany bass neck in the following manner (actually a two piece, but I glued the fretboard to the neck before finishing it). I finished the fretboard before I carved the neck, though I don't suppose this really mattered. Anyway, since the fretboard was mahogany, a relatively soft wood, I wanted to put a number of coats of satin polyurethane on it for durability, and I thought this would be extremely difficult to get an even finish after the frets were in . I radiused the board and did the final sanding, then brushed on the polyurethane, sanding smooth between coats, and polished it. Then I cut the fret slots and taped off the finished slotted fretboard. I waited until the neck was otherwise finished to install the frets, and level and dress them, taping between them.

I can't remember why I did things in the order I did - it made sense at the time and it worked.

[Barry Daniels]

The key to finishing before fretting is keeping the finish thin so that you don't chip or mess up the finish during the fretting process. If done carefully, a pre-finished fretboard will look much better than the ridges that are created when you scrape the finish of the frets.

[David King]

A maple finger board needs a durable finish if you don't want to see dark wear stains all over it in short order. Tru-oil has many virtues but durability is definitely not one of them. Also Tru-oil will soak into the end grain exposed in your fret slots and there it will never dry and your frets won't stay glued down as a result. I've seen this situation more than once and it's not much fun to deal with. At the very least seal off the end grain with shellac first. Reapply the tru-oil as soon as you think it might be getting thin and before the wood is exposed.

[Barry Daniels]

Really? Tru-oil is a curing finish and will not stay wet. Are you sure that you weren't looking at fingerboards that had been treated with some type of non-curing oil?

[David King]

Barry,
I've scraped through 10 year old Tru-oil finishes and the stuff won't cure or even dry if air can't get to it. The fresh oil smell is right under the surface at the endgrain. Granted many fingerboard oils are non curing and they would compound the problem by softening or even dissolving Tru-oil. I would use a hard finish on a fingerboard. Any wipe-on polyurethane would be fine for this with enough thickness.

[Barry Daniels]

Interesting observation, David. Thanks

[Pete Halliday]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

[Mark Wybierala]

I find it a lot simpler to just finish the entire neck including the fretted fingerboard all at once.

With slotting or cleaning slots, dressing the fret ends, leveling, recrowning, and polishing, there are too many things that can mess up a finish to bother needing to be too careful. I lay on a protective quick coat of shellac right before slotting. You can use a sharp piece of bone or brass to remove lacquer from frets and do a nice clean-up job in just a few minutes. If you do this within a few days of laying on the finish, the lacquer is still soft enough to not chip and the result is clean. I use a high speed dremel style 1/8" X 1" polishing wheel on the crowns after the fretwork is done and any lacquer doesn't stand a chance but I've been using a high speed wheel for many years and I'm very steady. This can be dangerous if your not up to it. My buffing rig is a Rotozip with a flexshaft running at 25000 rpm using polishing compound and if you slip, there is repair work ahead.

This is the way American Fenders have been done for many years although fender doesn't polish frets individually. On older Fenders you will often find lacquer still on the fret crowns of the far upper frets because no one has ever played up there.