Defretting ?

#562
My nephew bought a defretted budget offshore passive Music Man at a flea market. The slots were still present but the fretwire was gone... I took it, unscrewed the neck sanded it a little bit put some plastic wood in the slots, over filled the slots a tad sanded them down and coated about 10 times with a poly, works great.

That was the Jaco Pastorius method as described by Jaco Pastorius himself in a number of interviews
 
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#564
Defretting is quite easy if you tske your time and do it right. I did it to an ibanez sr nearly 30 years ago. Came out great. No chips. I did wet the fret board quite a bit and used a soldering iron to melt the glue.
I then very lightly sanded the edges of the gap and frilled the grooves with a wood filler that matched the fret board pretty well. I left the lines just a touch lighter so I could see where I was placing my fingers.

But man oh man did the strings eat into the fret board quickly. Nickel strings at that. Maybe if I had used flats, but I used rounded and you couldn't see the strings outline in the wood after just a couple days. Super fun to play, but it didn't last me.
These days I'd just buy a fretless if I wanted one. I don't think I'd ever defret a perfectly good bass again. Just my 2 cents.
 
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#565
Drop1 said:
Defretting is quite easy if you tske your time and do it right. I did it to an ibanez sr nearly 30 years ago. Came out great. No chips. I did wet the fret board quite a bit and used a soldering iron to melt the glue.
I then very lightly sanded the edges of the gap and frilled the grooves with a wood filler that matched the fret board pretty well. I left the lines just a touch lighter so I could see where I was placing my fingers.

But man oh man did the strings eat into the fret board quickly. Nickel strings at that. Maybe if I had used flats, but I used rounded and you couldn't see the strings outline in the wood after just a couple days. Super fun to play, but it didn't last me.
These days I'd just buy a fretless if I wanted one. I don't think I'd ever defret a perfectly good bass again. Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
I have to say it again - do not use wood filler to fill the fret slots. Refer to this thread:

 
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#566
Drop1 said:
Defretting is quite easy if you tske your time and do it right. I did it to an ibanez sr nearly 30 years ago. Came out great. No chips. I did wet the fret board quite a bit and used a soldering iron to melt the glue.
I then very lightly sanded the edges of the gap and frilled the grooves with a wood filler that matched the fret board pretty well. I left the lines just a touch lighter so I could see where I was placing my fingers.

But man oh man did the strings eat into the fret board quickly. Nickel strings at that. Maybe if I had used flats, but I used rounded and you couldn't see the strings outline in the wood after just a couple days. Super fun to play, but it didn't last me.
These days I'd just buy a fretless if I wanted one. I don't think I'd ever defret a perfectly good bass again. Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
I did almost the same thing. 25 years ago. The Ibanez was my first bass and I'd just gotten a second, nicer instrument.
I used a soldering iron and toenail clippers.
I wanted the fret lines to be subtle, so I filled the slots with dark gray epoxy. It worked perfectly. The bass still plays well and I don't think I've had to adjust the truss rod since then. No problems with wear; I put TI Jazz flats on it. Which today are probably worth more than the rest of the bass.
 
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