It finally happened...Re-gluing a fret!

[Big Swifty]

So as some of you may know, one of my main gigs has been with a circus.
In fact, the man himself Ken Parker came to see us perform when we were in Boston way back when..2013? Sometime around then anyways..
One of the things about this gig is that it can be kinda rough on equipment, especially during bump-in/set-up time, when there's basically the equivalent of a small construction site going on. And sometime gear gets ..bumped...
As would appear to have been the case with my Fly. Part way through the tech-run I felt it just wasn't quite playing right. A little later I looked down and then, horror of horrors, there it was, the high E string wedged under the 4th fret.
EEEEKKK!!!!
This guitar has been in constant service since I bought it new in '94, and this is the first show stopper type event. So I babied it through the rest of the evening, and upon inspection when I got home it did indeed look like the neck got knock right on that fret, paint chipped away, probs enough to dislodge it.
The fret could be lifted about a third of the way across.
What to do...
Well, I checked the internet and all the resources/videos and info I have, and figured I'd give gluing it a go myself. No real other option TBH...
I used my other far far more pristine Fly for the show while I waited totally impatiently for the super thin special superglue to arrive...
Tapping the frets as in that fixit video it was easy to hear the loose one. Rather than remove it completely, I opted to leave it in place and re-glue it down. If that didn't work, then I lift it all and try again..

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Then to the gluing..it was really thin and came out very quickly...

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Clamped for a bit..

And I put a dab of glue on some of the other frets as they sounded a bit duff.

It all cleaned up ok with acetone using a cotton bud and a match-stick for the stubborn bits.

However... the fret sat a little proud and was buzzing etc. So I figured I'd give it a quick fret dress rather than try take it off and then re-glue as I've done a few fret dresses, and some frets were a little worn anyway, and I really didn't fancy my chances of getting it sit any better if I tried again.

Here's comes the comedy of errors... so I taped it up:

Then started going for it and bang! Knocked the nut off then, didn't i...

No worries, there were enough rough bits to key it back on A-OK, so onwards... finally finished, I'll just rip all that tape off... aaannnnd a nice paint chip came off the top edge of the fretboard with the tape as well.. *sigh..

(Can't seem to upload any more pics on this post, so TBC below..)..

[Big Swifty]

Now, where were we?

Oh yeah...paint chip..;

Look, in my defence, I was impatient and in a hurry, ok?

Good.



Anyway, it all turned out ok in the end..

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And it does! It does work!

There you go kids, my Fly lives to play another dive-bomby guitar solo kinda day!

Rock on u crazy kids.

B.S.

P.S. Here's a better pic of the stuff I used.

[mmmguitar]

Beautifully documented. All worthwhile endeavors should be undertaken with a butter knife - They're good luck.

#FretIssues

[vjmanzo]

Hell yeah, @Big Swifty!

That story had everything! Way to be resilient!

[Big Swifty]

...All worthwhile endeavors should be undertaken with a butter knife ....
#FretIssues

I do so concur!

Hell yeah, @Big Swifty!

That story had everything! Way to be resilient!

Happy Endings R Us!



Love my Fly.

B.S.

[Barry]

Whenever you do fretwork it's almost always an adventure!
If you're lucky and the Gods of Guitar are smiling, all goes well.

If they happen to be on a coffee break, well anything goes.
Routine fixes go out the window and a grown guitar player can be reduced to whimpering in a fetal position as various adjacent components decide to be as uncooperative as possible, turning a simple repair into a cavalcade of cacophony (he said alliterally)

Nice save. I do love a happy ending *sniff*.

[mmmguitar]

@Barry may as well have been reading a passage from The Parable of Marc.

[Big Swifty]

Well, so far so good!

Back at … “work”.. we’ll see how it goes over the next little while.

Another day, another circus!