9:00am - 5:30pm
(1 hour of actual work spraying the mandolin)
OK....I'm finished spraying the mandolin!
Total of 16 coats of lacquer.
I'll let it dry for several days before the final sanding and polishing.
Since I really only had about 1 hour of work to do on the new mandolin, I thought I'd have Mark checkout the frets on my Washborn mandolin. Mark confirmed that the frets were worn and needed replaced. We decided to replace the first 13 frets. So here's how it went.....
After taking off the strings, I removed the nut. This was pretty easy since very little glue is used to hold it in place. Simply give it a tap upward toward the top of the headstock and it pops out.
Next I soaked the entire fretboard with lemon oil to make sure it was more flexible. This is, less likely to chip when removing the frets.
After soaking for several minutes, I started removing the old frets. Using a fret puller, I pry each fret out by starting at one side of a fret and slowing working over to the other side. All frets came out very easy. By the way, my fretboard is rosewood not ebony.
This shows all 13 frets removed.
I next cut each new fret to length. About 1/8 wider then the width of the fretboard at the location of that particular fret. After each fret is cut, I place it in a wooden holder that has corresponding numbered holes to store each fret.
Next I trim the lower corner of each side of each fret so that it fits into the fret slot, but inside of the binding.
This is a shot of the trimmed fret before its put into the fret slot.
Each fret is then lightly hammered into its corresponding fret slot. Again I work from on side to the other of the fret. I actually used the plastic side of the hammer, not the side that is pointed at the fretboard in this picture.
Here's all the frets installed on the fretboard.
I then file the sides of the frets even with the fretboard binding.
Next, I make sure that all the frets are flat and even on the fretboard using this diamond file.
After making sure all frets are level using a small metal ruler, I then crown each fret using this tool.
To finished the frets, I sand and polish using 220 sandpaper, 1800 sandpaper, steel wool and wool sock. Sanding is accomplished by putting the paper around a rubber block and running it up and down the fretboard 6 times in each direction.
Final product!
All stung up and ready to play.
