MIMF

It's been a while since I've updated this repair, so I thought I'd bring y'all up to the present. It's been an ordeal that I'll not soon forget. I bought a few StewMac items, including a 12" radius caul, one of their handy little fret saws for dealing with a fingerboard with binding installed, ...

This is a claim I certainly wouldn't make, even though I use a milling machine with tolerances of 0.001" in my builds. There is one specific operation where I take 0.020" off the front edge of the fingerboard to help with intonation. I am glad to have my milling machine for this one step b...

I build classicals plus one steel string acoustic I built for myself that has a Venetian cutaway. Because of my builds, I have used only wood binding on my guitars. I've built guitars from a variety of back/side woods, however, and I find that the species of wood makes a big difference as to any sor...

Barry and Freeman, thanks for your responses. Freeman, honestly I don't think anyone was trying to make a compound radius, reason being that some of the areas on the fingerboard resemble a 12" radius with too much taken off the edges, which ended up approximating a 9.5" radius. Or that's m...

I've been building guitars since 2004, and I do all my own work. During this time, I've also done fret jobs on a variety of guitar types, including refretting them. I've just never run across one before that was in such poor shape. Which is why I decided to mention it here at all. You see, my goal i...

The Guitar is a 1977 Ibanez 2355M, looks like some sort of deluxe Gibson ES-175 with flame maple all over. It's in great cosmetic and electrical condition, except for the fingerboard. The old frets had been filed down so far that only about half the original height was left, and they hadn't even bee...

I'm sooooo confused! OK, never mind about my above question. I ordered the LMI binding because they offer free shipping whereas Stewmac wanted to ding me for $10. But will I mess with making nib putty from it? I don't knooooooow!

OK, got a hopefully simple question about binding. My guitar's gonna need "cream" binding. StewMac sells "plastic" cream binding and LMI sells cream ABS binding. Is ABS gonna present a problem when trying to liquify it with Acetone? I guess I should probably go with StewMac's sin...

Yes, I'm aware of this. Just about everything on an old instrument turns yellow with age. But I'd describe the color of my guitar's binding as slightly off-white. It hasn't yellowed much at all. Well, I have a can of acetone. So I guess I should order an off-white stick of binding and give this bind...

Mark, I've had some more time to think about your comments. And now, I'm not as convinced as I was before. Reason? Well, it occurs to me that whenever a refret is done, the new frets are pretty much always gonna be taller than the old ones. So it isn't just a matter of deciding on noticeably taller ...

Oh well, Mark, as long as you do a good job, and deliver to the player a guitar he wants, that's all one can expect. I have a newer Ibanez also -- an AG85, which is also a jazz guitar, but has a smaller box, something like the George Benson models. It's a 2004 model and I've owned it for about six y...

Barry, this Ibanez 2355M might not be worth as much as the equivalent Gibson, but to Ibanez aficionados, it is most definitely collectible. I'll bet that if you were to ask these collectors whether the nibs should be preserved, they'll say absolutely.

.032 is not terribly low for guitars like this. I don't believe the original wire was much more than .036. Its a feel that is appreciated by some including myself but not by others. I'm one of the "others." I prefer tall frets, especially if I'm playing with heavier strings that I intend ...

Hah! That blog article was a hoot! And I guess it helped put things in perspective. Yes, I wanted to keep originality, if at all possible. But since the consensus seems to be that even experienced repair techs aren't willing to take on this repair, I guess I should just let the nibs go then. I have ...

I'm not sure what this style of binding is called. It's the binding you see on almost all Gibsons where the binding is contoured so it matches up with the frets, has that little bulge that matches each fret, and sits above the rest of the binding. The guitar is a 1977 Ibanez 2355M, one of Ibanez's &...

A turnbuckle requires 2 threaded rods--one with normal, right-hand threads, the other with left-hand threads so that when you spin the turnbuckle the rods will either be pulled together or pushed apart. Yeah, this is what I was remembering -- it has to have one left-hand threaded rod to work. I was...

Thanks for your response, Chuck. Strange, I don't even recall reading Michael's post. My eyes must have jumped over it without even taking it in. Yes, I guess I must reluctantly agree with yours and Michael's analyses. It's a shame -- this is actually a sweet sounding guitar. I absolutely refuse to ...

Folks, About a year ago or so I posted a question about how to proceed with a neck reset with this guitar, an Ibanez AE405TV. Here's a link to that thread, which includes pics of the guitar: http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1539&p=13825&hilit=ibanez+ae405tv#p13825 I have bee...

Well, thanks for the advice, guys. Actually, after giving the guitar a closer examination and giving it some more thought, I've come up with an idea very close to Jeffrey's -- about cutting off the neck and converting it to a bolt-on. And for pretty much the same reasons, although I was unaware of t...

Michael McBroom wrote:I recommend that you try building your own saddle.

Whoops, I meant "bridge," not saddle.