Fret Board Divot Repair

[Gordon Bellerose]

Hey people!
I'm wondering how many of you have filled a fret board where the board has divots/depressions where the strings have worn into it over the years?
I'm betting more than one.
If you have done this, can you tell me how you did it?
Did you fill it, and with what?
Or did you cut out the wood and replace the wood?

I'm thinking the cutout and replace option is best; harder to match the wood exactly, but mixing up some epoxy is not all that hard either.

[Freeman Keller]

I've done a couple with epoxy and powdered wood of whatever kind the f/b was - ebony or rose. It worked in a couple of cases, the patches popped out in a couple of others. I have a feeling that the owners had "fed" the wood with some sort of oily crap which prevented good bonding. Mostly now when I pull all the frets I just level the board the best I can and live with whatever divots are left. I've had good luck gluing chip outs back in place with superglue.

[David King]

I see very little point in fixing these wear marks since they'll come right back if the fret height isn't raised and or the player's technique isn't altered. Most players would consider these a point of pride anyway. The exception is when it's a soft whitewood board with some dark stain on it on a really cheap guitar.

[Carl Dickinson]

Check Frank Fords website Frets.com. Great instructions on roughing the divots and getting them to rise up.

[Gordon Bellerose]

I guess I should have mentioned that this is the same guitar I did a neck reset on. The owner has a really strong emotional connection with this one! I think it was his very first guitar, bought back in the early 1970's.

I am completely re-fretting it, with higher frets.
I have sanded it smooth and still have a couple of small divots on the first and second frets.
Maybe I could simply sand it a bit more and live with the small divots.

[David King]

Frank Ford's method was to deeply score the grain at the bottom of the divot with a sharp Xacto knife, making parallel cuts along the grain to help with adhesion and also to lift some original wood slivers up to the surface of the repair to give it a more natural appearance. http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier ... divot.html