Ibanez Soundgear Bass: Fretless Conversion


1. An Ibanez Soundgear Bass.	2. Removing the Frets is best done with a flush ground set of end-nippers and a soldering iron. The soldering iron heats up the frets to soften any glue or other gunk that might be in the fret slots.


3. Resurfacing the Fretboard. The fretboard on this bass has a hump at the end of the neck where it's bolted into the body. I'm rough shaping the end of this rosewood fretboard with a block plane. The hump at the end of the neck is the result of the varying effect of string tension throughout the neck. As the neck becomes thicker, it responds differently to string tension.	4. Final Leveling of the Fretboard. I'm using a long, flat sanding bar wrapped in 220 grit sandpaper to ensure a flat fretboard. Next, I'll create a secondary plane in the end of the fretboard. This is called "planned fatigue" and it is done to compensate for the differentiation in the effects of string tension between the thicker end of the neck and the majority of the neck which is thinner.


5. Filling the Fretslots can be done with a myriad of materials from epoxy to super glue mixed with wood- dust to thin strips of hardwood. The owner of this bass wanted the old fretslots to standout so I'm gluing in some white celluloid perfling with epoxy. This perfling is pretty rigid stuff. Although it has pretty much no shear strength, it holds up well against compression so I'm not worried about the celluloid reducing the rigidity of the neck.	6. Cutting the Excess Perfling Ends.


7. Trimming the Perfling Flush with the Fretboard. A razor sharp chisel is my tool of choice for this job because it cuts cleanly and quickly.	8. Sanding the Perfling Flush.


9. Filing the Perfling Ends Flush with the side of the fingerboard. I'm using a modified mill file for this job. The file has all cutting surface, no tang and rounded and smoothed sides and corners.	10. Polishing the Side of the Fretboard with steel wool followed by micro-abrassives gets rid of the file marks and makes the finish as shinny as new.


11. Cleaning and Sealing the Fingerboard with naptha (for cleaning) and mineral oil (for sealing).	12. Cleaning and Lubricating the Hardware. This bass has been played a lot for a few years now, time to lubricate the saddles and related adjusting screws with some sewing machine oil.


13. Removing the Excess Nut Material with the modified mill file. Without those frets the nut slots are going to need to be a heck of a lot deeper. If I didn't get rid of the excess nut material this bass would have tuning problems because too much nut would be contacting the strings.	14. Sanding and Polishing the Nut.


15. Adjusting the Nut Slots' Depth.	16. A Properly Adjusted Nut.


17. High Visibility Position Markers.	18. The Side of the Fingerboard.


19. All Done!