Upgrading the fretboard of the Harley Benton

Today's operation, while quite time consuming, is by far the most significant in terms of improving the overall performance of the guitar. You remember that already upon opening the box, I had noticed that the surface of the rosewood fretboard was very obivously not up to standard:

The rosewood looks very raw, and the frets look very tarnished as well.

It did look pretty bad, and it felt bad too. The oxyded frets and the poorly sanded fretboard have a rasping effect on the strings whenever you try to apply vibrato or bends. As a result, these - quite essential - techniques not only become very uncomfortable and inaccurate to perform, but they also generate a lot of parasite noise as the string rasps against the raw surfaces. That, very clearly, put this guitar several leagues behind what I would call a decent instrument in terms of comfort and playability. And to be frank I had doubts whether I would be able to sort it out...

It turned out however that tedious as it was, the job was not unfeasible.

The good news to start with is that contrary to criticism that has often been thrown at previous runs of Harley Benton guitars, the fretboards of these new models are fretted more properly: the fretwire sits well at the bottom of the slots throughout the neck (no high frets stand out) and the fret ends are accurately cut and filed so that there are no sharp ends to cut your fingers or jam the strings. On mine at least, all 44 ends of the 22 frets sit perfectly tightly on the binding of the neck. That is similar to any other guitar with a bound fretboard, with the notable exception of traditional Gibsons where the binding is filed to espouse the shape of each individual fret, so that the frets are also bound. That design is much more delicate and expensive, and more elegant too, but frankly from a comfort standpoint I think the cheaper method of laying the fret on top of the binding is superior because like that the string, especially the high E string when vibrated, cannot be caught in the interstice between the fretwire and the binding.

That's Gibson's premium binding. Note that here, it's not the binding that's fretted, but the frets that are bound.

Now to the upgrade job: Step one after unstringing the guitar is to repolish the frets. 

Gently polishing the fret until the matt coating comes off and the fretwire looks pristine and shiny.

I use Göldo Fret Polishing Rubber and I do this on every guitar each and every time I change strings, so as to keep the frets always to the highest standard. I bought a pair of rubbers two or three years ago and I think they'll serve me for another ten years at least. Really good stuff to have.

Note that if there had been any high frets, I would first have filed them down to be level with the rest using my Thomann fret file, also an inexpensive and everlasting must-have tool in your kit.

Notice how shinier the bottom two frets are: they've been polished (the rubber dust next to them just needs wiping off).

To check whether the fret is smooth enough, run the tip of your index nail on the top of it. If it gets caught or if its rasps anywhere, more polishing is needed. If you find a deeper dent, file it away with the fret file, and then always polish the fret again after filing, that'll ensure your surface is as clean as it can get. Also make sure you check how running your nail on a polished fret feels compared to running it on an unpolished one. You'll be amazed at the difference. And the reason to use your nail is because it is what comes the closest to how the string, when bent or vibrated, will feel against the fret. If it is smooth, the playing comfort will feel "Gibsonish". If it is not, it will feel Epiphonish at best. A world of difference, and so easy to make.

After I was done with all 22 frets...

WARNING: What follows should not be tried on finished maple fretboards like on this Fender.

...I set out to also smoothen the rosewood surface itself. First I very gently wet-sanded every bit of the surface with 600 grit sandpaper and lemon oil. Ideally the paper should be finer grit but that's the best I have available, and ideally also you should soak it in water for at least an hour beforehand so the paper is soft and its edges don't leave fine scratches on the surface. I unfortunately did not do that, but that's only an aesthetic problem.

Progressing minutely fret by fret, carefully sanding around the inlays.

Normally sanding should be done along the grain of the wood, but bacuse the frets are now in the way, I make gentle circular motions with tiny bits of lemon oiled sandpaper. I use a new piece of paper for every other fret.

AGAIN: DON'T TRY THIS ON THIS KIND OF FRETBOARD!

Once this is done, you will see that the surface of the rosewood is much smoother to the touch but shows very visible sanding scratches. Higher grit paper would have made less of those, but that's not a major problem. What I do next, to get rid of those scratches and to finish smoothening the surface, is that I debuff everything with #0000 steel wool.

Steel wool needs to be used very gently across the entire surface.

Steel wool gets very messy because the tiny bits of steel fly all around, some may even make their way into the pores of your skin, and you may inhale them, so wearing gloves and a mask are sound precautions to take... which I foolishly didn't. Be also prepared to see plenty of steel dust around the guitar itself, particularly sticking to the magnetised pieces of the pickups. Don't brush them off with a rag, you might damage the finish. Instead, carefully vacuum them up while avoiding touching the finish with the vacuum cleaner. I have already scratched nice finishes with the vacuum cleaner's brush, don't make that mistake.

When done with the steel wool, my last step is to soak the fretboard again in a coat of lemon oil and leave it there for a while before wiping off the excess. This nourishes the rosewood and enhances its nice grain.

Lemon oil is soaking in while I take my lunch break.

Once cleaned from all dust and any excess lemon oil, my fretboard looks as if it were completely new. Nothing in common with how it looked at first - just look at the bottom right corner of the picture below, and compare it to the opening picture in this post.

SPOILER ALERT: It not only looks much better, it also plays incomparably better. By now, it actually feels like a Gibson.

So there you are: a couple of hours of work, a lot of elbow grease, but at the end of the day, I turned my ugly, raspy and uncomfortable cheap fretboard into premium gear which feels like magic. Somewehere between silk and velvet. If you do only one thing to your guitar, let this be it. You won't believe the difference it makes. And I'm not saying that just because it worked on this project: I have experienced that time and again with other instruments of other brands, makes and types. Once I bought a second hand guitar that didn't feel very comfortable to play, which allowed me to negotiate the price down. A few hours later, with the fretboard sanded and oiled, the frets polished and a new set of strings, the guitar felt like it was instantly worth twice more. The seller would not believe it was the same instrument. Seriously: try it out, the result will blow your mind.

COMING UP NEXT: Upgrading the hardware.