Botched glued fret. Help!

[stphn74]

Hi, I just became a fly deluxe owner today and it has a fret that has been re-glued on very badly. It is sitting high and it's on a slight angle to the rest of the frets. I'm after advice on how to deal with this. The previous owner says he knows nothing about it so I can't find out what kind of glue was used. Any ideas how to remove the fret and glue without damaging the fretboard?

[vjmanzo]

Hi @stphn74, and welcome. Sorry to hear about this, but it’s not a lost cause. You can look at the #topics section linked from the top menu of our site to read several articles on fret issues including a detailed post on reglueing frets from Ken Parker in “Ken’s Corner”. Let us know if this helps!

[stphn74]

Thank you!

The fret was sitting so high that it had a gap at each end between the fretboard and it just popped off when I stuck my finger nail under it. I managed to clean all the glue off with many applications of acetone which I applied by laying a piece of fabric cut to fit, soaked in it. Then after each soaking I picked at the glue with my finger nail and eventually got it all off. Next issue was that the bass end of the fret had been filed down to try and compensate for how high it was sitting. Even still the fret was causing major fret buzz. I glued it back on with supper glue but found it was sitting too low due to the filing so I repeatedly took it off and added layers of glue till it was sitting high enough. No buzz now and so much cleaner! Unfortunately there's quite a few marks from their botched job but a lot of it polished off and I got all the glue marks off the board and sides of the neck [attachment=1]PXL_20230204_224626236.jpg[/attachment][attachment=1]PXL_20230204_224626236.jpg[/attachment]

[mmmguitar]

Excellent. I haven't yet had to deal with this, but will reference your experience should I have to.

[vjmanzo]

Way to go, @stphn74!