Filling Chipped Fret Slots
© Frank Ford, 3/3/00; Photos by FF
If the chip is still in place, I glue it down immediately for fear of knocking it out.
If the chip looks like this, and I don't have the piece, I'll wait until all the frets are pulled out:
Before leveling the fingerboard, I'll mix up a little cyanoacrylate with some lampblack (powdered carbon) pigment:
Ebony boards are far more likely to chip than rosewood, but if it's a rosewood fingerboard, I'll use some rosewood dust with my cyanoacrylate, of course.
Cyanoacrylate tends to turn white if it is hit with liquid accelerator, so I'll take a Q-tip and dab on some accelerator before I add my cyanacrylate:
The accelerator is dry when the cyanoacrylate hits the fingerboard, so the reaction is catalyzed more slowly:
But, it still "goes off" in a matter of seconds, and is hard enough to level along with the rest of the fingerboard.
After leveling and sanding, you'd never notice the filled spot:
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