fixing a fretboard?

[Simon Magennis]

So far when I have had to re-saw a fret slot I have filled the old one with sawdust and ca glue. What are the alternatives? Does hhg work ok for this? Better? CA has the advantage that it is quick which is good but I hate the smell of the solvent. I have two fretboards where some of my higher (14th up) slots are off and I will first try to fix them rather than replacing the boards. Good repair practice.

[Greg Robinson]

You could glue in slivers of veneer with a gap filling glue like CA (cyanoacrylate/superglue) or epoxy, or just fill with epoxy or epoxy with a filler material (microbeads, sawdust, etc.).

[Clay Schaeffer]

Cutting the filler strip so the grain is oriented the same as the board will help it be less noticeable. If the board is thick enough you could plane off the old fret slots and cut new ones. Sometimes a slightly mis-cut slot can be hidden by the fret and is less of a problem.
Another way to reuse flat fingerboards without showing the mistakes is to fill all the slots , recut them on the other side and bind the finished board.
Unless you can make the repair nearly invisible you may be better off sucking it up and using a new board with properly cut slots.

[Chuck Tweedy]

Ok, here a come a couple if's...

If the mistake slot will be covered by the fret and ...
if the board is ebony...

Then you can just size a stick of ebony to fit in the slot and glue it in with gap-filling CA. Then re-cut the slot in the right place. The repair will be be totally invisible. (DAMHIKT)