Fender Aerodyne Jazz fretless conversion

[LawrenceH]

I bought an Aerodyne Jazz, originally to try out and then sell on, but it was so nice I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it. So to justify keeping yet another jazz I thought I'd convert it to fretless, and have a go at coating the board as well so I can get that nice growly roundwound fretless tone. Not finished yet but thought I'd put up some of my progress so far...

Edited February 12, 2012 by LawrenceH

[LawrenceH]

So, I was a little hesitant to start ripping frets out of this very nicely finished bass in case I stuffed it up (doesn't normally stop me but eh). Fortunately, thanks to BC user oldslapper I managed to get a cheapo jazz-type neck to practice on for the cost of postage! Thanks again John
I had a go at the defretting and veneer inserting on this and it seemed suspiciously straightforward...I ripped the frets out with a leatherman, which seemed easy enough to do without damaging the rosewood board, then superglued in 0.6mm maple veneers (perfect fit) before sanding down with a 8" length 9.5" radius block from Stew Mac. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of this process but nothing apparently went wrong so I moved on to the Aerodyne. You'll never guess what - it was much harder.

First casualty. The snug neck pocket on this bass is a testament to Japanese build tolerances. My removal of the neck was a testament to English cack-handedness. You live and, occasionally, learn...luckily being black it should be a fairly simple spot repair.
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Here's the board before I mangle it, it's a nice piece of wood:
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Some wear marks...definitely won't stand up to roundwounds without a coating of some kind!
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Edited February 13, 2012 by LawrenceH

[LawrenceH]

Removing the glued in nut, with the flat-head screwdriver and hammer. A bit nerve-wracking but I did this freehand and amazingly managed not to gouge any chunks out or snap the nut.
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Unlike for the previous board, I decided I'd mask this one up before removing the frets to offer some protection and help catch any chips pulled out. Rather glad I did this, as it turns out...these frets are really small in profile, quite soft, and I suspect glued in. At any rate, they were MUCH harder to pull out, this first one took ages and without a set of nippers that have been ground down to match the board radius, it's really tricky not to mark the board with metal tools. I heated them with a soldering iron for a few seconds until they smoked (presumably the glue) but this didn't seem to make all that much difference.
[attachment=99851:DSCF1465.JPG]

After a couple of frets I found that loosening up the frets with a razorblade helped subsequent pulling, working it under each part of the fret bit by bit.
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Turns out razorblades are quite dangerous in the hands of an idiot. Who knew?
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[LawrenceH]

Once the bleeding had eventually stopped (took quite a long time actually, it was deep) I finished this very tedious and now quite painful job. No massive chunks came out, but the tangs pulled up little bits in quite a few places and up close it did look a bit ragged
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I kept the tape on, and used a fresh razorblade to clean out the fret slots and take away the filler from the ends. Then I started preparing the maple veneers - on this neck unlike the cheap one the slots follow the radius of the board, meaning the veneers also have to be radiused. I used the practice neck as a template, shamelessly copying a youtube video I found
[attachment=99860:DSCF1472.JPG]

Once the veneers were sanded down so they sat all the way in the slots, I ran a line of superglue on the bottoms then pushed them into place, before putting a thin line round each edge and pressing the wood down to hopefully flatten some of the raised flakes back into place.
[attachment=99861:DSCF1473.JPG]

[LawrenceH]

After I'd finished the veneers I cut them down roughly to size with a blade, trying to avoid any gouging along the grain of the maple that'd pull it out below the surface of the board. Nearly succeeded, too. Tried some spot-filling using superglue and maple dust with limited success - the glue just dried too fast, maybe I should've used wood glue. Anyway it was close enough for jazz and there was still the sanding to go. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures for a bit, but basically just took off the tape and sanded with the block trying to put as even a pressure as possible all the way along the board until it looked like this:
[attachment=99862:DSCF1474.JPG]

Next I decided that just to spice things up, I wanted the neck bound to match the aerodyne body. Which makes a good point to pause...

[EBS_freak]

That's looking to be a very nice job so far.

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1329126079' post='1537319']
That's looking to be a very nice job so far.
[/quote]

Cheers! Sanding erases a multitude of imperfections Just have to hope I haven't introduced any new ones...I would've liked the longer 18" sanding blocks but decided I was too cheapskate. We'll see if that comes back to haunt me.