Fret removal The guitar is strapped into a homemade neck jig (based upon one by Dan Erlewine). The main benefit of the neck jig is so you can fret the guitar while simulating sting tension which is extremely valuable. At this point we are just trying to get the neck dead perfectly straight.
The frets are heated wtih a soldering iron immediately prior to removals. This helps to minimize chipping. As you can see the fretboard is very old and appears to be almost water damaged so some chipping is inevitable.
The frets are pulled.
The water damage becomes more apparent now.
The original frets are saved as a reference point.
Leveling of the fretboard.
Continued sanding with a radius block.
We attempted to fill these with some fretboard saw dust and super glue which is a standard method.
The problem: Everytime we repaired a chip, two new ones would develop. Not only was the fretboard chipping but the binding was starting to chip since it was extremely fragile (arghhh). The Solution: Complete fretboard replacement which involved removing the old fretboard, preparing a new fretboard with new inlays and binding, and installing the new fretboard. On to the next pictorial in the series (fretboard replacement)
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