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Refretting a 1959 Gibson Les Paul “Burst”

• Les Paul Custom Binding
• Les Paul Gibson For Sale
• Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Isaac
• Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Tape

Because it's so new, there's a good chance it could be covered under Gibson's warranty, especially if it's cracked underneath the nitro and clearly has no signs of trauma (ie: accidently dropping). I would call gibson (800-4gibson). Play a guitar without binding and you can sometimes feel the fret edges. As stated in the previous post, the wood responds to the climate. My Tele neck was smooth until the seasons changed. They needed to be filed. From what I can tell the frets push on the binding. I haven't seen a gibson without the cracks. Binding is the material that covers the edges of the guitar and is typically of a contrasting color to the body paint. Depending on the model, a Gibson guitar may have binding on the edges, the fretboard, the head stock and even the tuning pegs. If your Gibson guitar has damaged binding, it will look tatty.

This 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, AKA “Burst” was in need of a refret and a good setup. I photographed the process as I went along. It had been refretted before at some point but the remaining frets were low, flat and not seated well. The fretboard also suffered from unlevelness and a rounded off, uneven radius. Also, with the truss rod fully tightened, there was too much relief in the neck. It would never play well without a refret and correction of the fretboard.

The nut had been shimmed up with various plastics and glue. I’ll give it a solid shim later if the nut is too low after the new frets are in. I adjusted the truss rod so there is room to loosen or tighten it once the refret is complete.

Some loose binding was in need of glue.

With heat from a soldering iron, the frets are freed from old glue and pulled out with minimal chipping.

All the frets are removed, now for the fun part.

Fret slots are “fortified” with ultra low viscosity cyanoacrylate glue(super glue), taking care to glue any chips back in place.

Time to sand! Sanding is done with a machine level sanding bar and adhesive back 120 grit sandpaper. Finer grits will be used later. The bar is run lengthwise along the string line, to insure levelness along each string and to correct the radius at the same time. I’m aiming to maintain a 10 inch radius at the the upper register of the board and a 9 inch radius at the nut. 10 inch radius will accommodate the bridge radius and 9 inches at the nut will give comfort as well as take care of the fretboard roll-off in that area. You can see here there was a deep dip in the board just up from the body joint that was causing a lot of playability issues. You can also see some of the roll-off.

Filling a chip with a teflon dam along the way.

Almost there! I use the little wooden boat sander(seen at the right) to dial in small corrections in radius between sanding with the bar.

The owner decided to go with fret wire of similar dimensions to Gibson factory fretwire from the late 50′s. This wire is .103″ in width.

All fret slots are cleared of glue and debris to an adequate depth and width to receive the new frets. A dremel tool with an adjustable depth setting is great for this task.

A small bevel is given to each slot to help frets sit better and prevent future chipping.

Les Paul Custom Binding

Fretboard is leveled and radiused and fret slots are prepped.

New frets are trimmed and tapped in. Once frets are completely flush and properly seated, a small bead of ultra thin viscosity cyanoacrylate glue is wicked into one side. This is done to prevent future fret “pop out” due to changes in humidity and temperature. I use a swab of vaseline prior to glueing to direct the glue into the fret slot.

All the frets are in!

Frets are trimmed to the edge of the binding and beveled with a hand file, then cleaned up with 600 and 1000 grit sandpaper.

Frets are then leveled with the sanding bar and 220 grit adhesive back paper to chase out any minor discrepancies to insure everything is as level as possible.

Checking the level.

Fretboard is lightly scraped with a razor blade.

Sanding, cleaning and polishing.

Frets are done, time for the setup!

Here you can see the original red lacquer under the pickguard.

A new shim was needed to achieve the right nut slot height while preserving the original nut.

Les Paul Gibson For Sale

Setup complete, ready to play!

Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Isaac

Gibson Les Paul Cracked Binding Tape