wenge fingerboard - Freted to fretless convertion

[A.G.E.N.T.E.]

Dear bass fellas,  since i have a japanese ibanez laying in it´s case for.. lets see...too long . I was thinking in converting it to fretless.

The thing is, it´s a wenge fretboard and  I don´t remeber seeing many fretless basses with wenge fingerboards (maybe i just have bad memory). Any particular reason for this? Is it because wenge gets splintered easily or something else?

Thanks in advance

[Norris]

I've heard some people describe wenge as a bunch of splinters held together with snot. I've never worked with it myself though

[A.G.E.N.T.E.]

I guess that´s because wenge is a bit uneven and fretless fingerboars usally a re shiny and flat. Also i guess i´ll have some trouble with the splinters when removing the frets. Maybe someone allready tried this and can shre the results

[bartelby]

I defretted a battered old Warwick a few years back. Yes, it falls apart like Weetabix as you pull the frets.

Last year had my first go at a super glue coating. I did it in a bit of a rush, two days work really. This has 7 layers of glue, flatted back after 4 coats, then added 3 more. Lots of super fine wet and dry and polishing later it looked like this.

I polished through the glue on the edges of the board. One day I'll go back and redo it as it wasn't that difficult.

[Grangur]

I do up basses. One I had was a Warwick with a wenge fingerboard. The frets were worn out and the strings had been well ground into the wood of the neck. I guess this is what would happen to your fretless.

Why not remove the fingerboard and fit a new ebony board? This would also give you the opportunity to put the side dots in the right place: in the fret-wire positions.

[A.G.E.N.T.E.]

11 hours ago, Grangur said:

I do up basses. One I had was a Warwick with a wenge fingerboard. The frets were worn out and the strings had been well ground into the wood of the neck. I guess this is what would happen to your fretless.

Why not remove the fingerboard and fit a new ebony board? This would also give you the opportunity to put the side dots in the right place: in the fret-wire positions.

Well that´s an interesting idea! Never thought about that.  I was thinking about doing it my self  and changing the fingerboard  is a bit out of my league 😅

[Grangur]

My guess is you could do it yourself, @A.G.E.N.T.E.. 

You can buy a fingerboard blank and steam the old F.B. off. There are vids on YouTube that show how to do it.

Stick the new one on and use a radius sanding block to shape the new board.

There are plenty of experienced guys here who can give guidance. Just start a thread in the "Build diaries" sectionand it will soon get attention from the right quarters.