Fret level & dress :: 1989 Sadowsky Jazz Bass [8.8 lbs]

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This sweet 27 year old Sadowsky J-bass has been through the shop before and this time in for some high / loose frets.  Before leveling the frets, I glued and clamped down all of the frets to ensure they did not move.  On rosewood fingerboards my glue of choice is thin superglue.  This was a finished maple fingerboard so superglue can make a mess quickly.  I opted for slightly thinned down yellow glue to penetrate down into the slot and easily clean up.  Now the frets are ready to be leveled, crowned and polished.  This player prefers electric guitar action (ie low) so precise fretwork is critical.

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Short circuit & loose frets :: Ibanez BTB775PB [9.8 lbs]

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A beastly Ibanez 5 string bass in for an intermittent short circuit and fret buzz.  I traced the output issue to a bad 25k volume pot that needed to be replaced (see video below for the replacement).  As for the fret buzz, treble side fret ends 12-20 were playing it high and loose.  The inexpensive fix was to glue and clamp them back down.  Doing a fret level after they were locked back down would have further improved clean playing up the neck.

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Loose fret ends :: Ibanez BTB 5 string bass

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Gluing down some loose / high frets on a 5 string Ibanez bass.

Shim saddle :: Ibanez GA6CE-AM [4.5 lbs]

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Low action and loose frets plagued this nylon string with all kinds of buzzes.  The loose fret ends were mainly along the treble side of the fingerboard.  Many frets could be tapped down while one needed to be clamped and glued.  The saddle was shimmed up along with a truss rod adjustment (on a classical?!).  Tightening the the output jack finished up the setup.

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Sprung fret :: Ibanez GA6CE-AM classical

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The fret ends all along the fret ends were loose and lifting so I hammered them back down.  This fret was stubborn and would just pop back up like a diving board so it needed to be glued and clamped into submission.