Frets and Binding

[Philco]

Took the big chance and bought a Gibson ES775 on Ebay and it arrived today.
Overall I'm more than happy with the instrument and it sounds wonderful to me. I think it's the best instrument I've ever had.
It's a 1992.
However there are problems and I wanted to ask the list if anyone has seen this before.
The guitar looks like it really hasn't been played much. There are absolutely no scratches anywhere on the instrument.
The gold hardware is absolutely perfect and actually looks new.
I know these guitars are reasonably rare so I don't think the hardware would be easy to find.
Anyway I don't have a problem with that.
What I do have a problem with is the binding on the neck.
The frets are original and the binding is over the frets.

But the ends of the frets are bulging through the binding on both sides of the neck. You can see it and clearly feel the bumps along the side of the binding.
Now I'm not talking about where the binding goes over the extremity of the fret I'm talking about the the side of the binding. The frets are pushing through the side of the binding. Every fret does this.
One fret has actually pushed a little chunk of the binding off which I will have to have repaired.

It's as if the ebony board has shrunk over the years.
Anyone seen this before and what do you think could have caused it?

The other thing is that there is very fine "finish checking" all over the instrument front and back. You have to hold it to the light to see it but it's there. Actually it looks pretty cool.
Now I have seen this on some very old instruments but this guitar is not quite 20 years old.
Do you think this is normal or has this instrument possibly come from a humid place?
Thanks for any insights.
here is a link to the guitar
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ws/eBayIS...m=140621653906

[cmajor9]

Beautiful-looking guitar, congrats! How does it play?

I'd say take it to a luthier to have them look at the frets and bindings. I'm not at expert, but it sounds odd that the fretboard would have shrunk in 20 years - I've played a lot older guitars than that, with no shrinkage of the fretboard. Maybe the binding simply needs re-doing.

[oldane]

With bound fingerboards, it's ususal precedure to cut the tang of the fretwire, so it's only the top of the fret, not the tang, that goes all the way out to the binding. That way problems like yours are avoided. But the fretting has obviosly not been done properly on your guitar. I am hesitant to believe that Gibson has made such a bummer. Is it possible that it has been refretted by a less than fully competent technician (or by a DIY man) at some point?

If it was my guitar, I would have it refretted - the correct way. That guitar is easily worth it.

[Sphere]

Oldane, on Gibsons the frets don't extend over the binding at all, the binding itself has a part that covers the ends of the frets. See here.
Philco, this is perfectly normal. Wood will shrink significantly when dry, even over a much shorter period of time. Take it to a luthier.

[Philco]

Thanks guys. The guitar plays beautifully. One of the best necks I've played as far as action and no buzzing goes. Just a dream.
I am aware of how binding can cover the ends of the frets as in your photo but I'm talking about something quite different. Here are some shots. It's a little hard to see but there is a bulge coming through the binding on every fret.

http://web.me.com/pbuckle1/filechute/Neck%201.zip

And here is the crater....


http://web.me.com/pbuckle1/filechute/Neck%202.zip

I'm starting to think it was a dodgy re fret and attempt at re binding
I'm thinking this because there is a slight wear mark on the lacquer at the back of the neck and some wood almost showing through....as you would expect from a 20 year old guitar.... but there is absolutely no wear on the frets.
Also can you see the binding on the neck toward the headstock just before the crater? It splays out a little. Dodgy.

I have taken it to a luthier and he thinks it's the ebony board shrinking although he hasn't really seen this happen before.
I think I'll just re fret and rebind. I plan on keeping this one for a long time.
This is the sound I was after.

[rpguitar]

Just a side note. I had a '92 ES-775. It was my first archtop and it was a beauty. I always look at serial numbers when I see them online, because they are so rare, "just in case" mine shows up.

So you don't have mine... But they were made on the same day, only a few guitars apart! Mine was 92202348.

[seanlowe]

gibson bound fretboards are meant to be like that, however the bits knocked off sound like it could have been an iffy refret (or just recrowning). Unless you want to keep it in 100% factory condition, consider getting it changed to the far more popular way of having the end of the fret over the binding - its more comfortable, easier to do fretwork, looks better imo.

[Philco]

Just a side note. I had a '92 ES-775. It was my first archtop and it was a beauty. I always look at serial numbers when I see them online, because they are so rare, "just in case" mine shows up.

So you don't have mine... But they were made on the same day, only a few guitars apart! Mine was 92202348. Here's an old web page I put up.

That's quite a coincidence!
I'm not immune to the new guitar infatuation but I've had enough guitars in my life to know that this one is special.
Wonderfully in tune all over the neck and plenty of sustain even with big flat wounds.
She's a keeper.

I have had quite a few Gibson's in my life (worked a retail music shop for 10 years and we were a Gibson agent) and I don't remember the binding bulging like this.
Actually it doesn't worry me to play it like this at all.
Man it's scary spending that much money on Ebay and not even playing the guitar.
I think I was lucky.

[oldane]

Oldane, on Gibsons the frets don't extend over the binding at all, the binding itself has a part that covers the ends of the frets. See here.
Philco, this is perfectly normal. Wood will shrink significantly when dry, even over a much shorter period of time. Take it to a luthier.

Ah, yes I can see now from the OP's pics that there are fret nibs in the binding. Some Gibsons, but not all, has that. That way the fret ends can press the binding out if the wood shrinks. I have always considered fret nibs an unnecessary "refinement" with no practical function - but with potential inherent problems as seen in this case. If it had been made with "normal" fretting, the problem could have been solved by simply filing the fret ends down. I own a guitar with nibs myself, and they will have to go at the first refret.

As the OP writes himself, the correct remedy for this problem would be a refret and new bindings on the fretboard, as a piece of the binding is broken off due to the pressure, leaving a sharp edged crater which will be a problem when sliding up and down the neck. I would prefer not to have nibs on the new binding to avoid future problems with this less stable fretboard, and the luthier should cut the fret tangs so there is a little space between the tang and the binding to allow for the shrinking and swelling which obviously goes on with this fretboard.

[Patrick2]

There are two things that are glaringly obvious to me. First, and foremost, that is an absolutely beautiful Gibson arch top. Secondly, there was a very poor refret done on that guitar somewhere along the line.

In my opinion, the only way you're going to be happy is to have it correctly refretted .. . . correctly meaning a competent luthier and new original Gibson binding. A competent luthier will take advantage of having a fret board bare of the frets and the binding, giving him the ability to check for and address any unevenness in the fret board.

Regarding seanlowe's comments on the frets extending over the binding . . . that a very personal matter. Some like it . . others do not. He states that it's more comfortable to play with the frets going all the way to the end of the finger board. I believe that with a proper fret job, one would not be able to tell the difference between binding nubs and fret ends. However, if you're going to replace the binding anyway . . . and you really should do so because the condition of the current binding is horrible . . . might as well do it the way Gibson would have done it at the factory and restore it to its total original condition.

[rpguitar]

Yes, the ES-775 I had was also a great guitar. I didn't really need to buy and sell a jillion guitars between that one and where I am today. (But you know how it is...) I ended up selling mine only because I stumbled upon a 1957 ES-175DN, which at the time was pretty much my dream guitar, for a really really cheap price. Once I had them both in hand, the 175 was old, lightweight wood, and the 775 felt a bit heavy and ungainly in comparison. I just didn't feel the need for two laminated, 24.75" Gibson electric archtops.

The 775 had a special combination of great sustain and deep, liquid electric tones, with a sparkle on the high end thanks to the ebony board. Not to mention the gorgeous inlay and unique wood components that made it fun to look at. The neck was also a nice chunky D shape that seemed perfect for the demands of jazz.

Frets notwithstanding, I hope you enjoy yours.

[Drifter]

I don't think that it has been (lousily) refretted. The guitar is too mint to have such a history. It probably has been stored in very dry conditions over a long period of time and played so little, that the fretboard didn't even get moisture from the left hand. If you have it refretted, make sure to let it acclimate to your conditions first, which are hopefully not as dry.

[henry b]

Did you let the seller know of your concerns .

[stevedenver]

philco thats a beauty

slow down on the worries and live with it a bit

i cant tell if its re-fretted-i too doubt it-from what is see is not untypcial and not a re-fret at all

and i doubt it needs it now

but i agree from your pics the divits on the side seem a bit deeper than i have ever experienced
and maybe it IS a re-fret-or perhaps the ebony just really shrank a lot

i think you will need to fill the chunk-and i dont know what to tell you-i would not patch with a bit of binding but rather find some appropriate filler psate-but i don tknwo what that would be-


as for the checking its either swings in humidity or temp or both
the good news is that it has weatehred these well
be careful with lots of checking and dont use an oily polish as it can seep into the cracks and into the wood and leave a stain that can take a long time to go away-know this first hand


i have many gibbys-

frets do exactly what you have-the wood shrinks and the frets dont-but from your pics it does seem a bit more than usual

try this

oil the board and wait a week,
oil it again and wait

while im a bore oil guy-in your case id try fret doctor
as its pretty heavy stuff an i think it might well swell the wood a bit with repeat applications-it will also be a PITA egarding getting glue to stick on the chunk area -but first things first

i am confident that the frets will recede a bit, i feel this from time to time on my martin and other instruments without edge binding-a little oil and the protrusions recede

its normal to have a 'glass crack' in the clear coat of the binding where the fret pokes

it is true that fresh from the factory, gibby frets are timmed into the board, then the side binding applied and scraped-what this means is that the fret will have a tiny nib of the plastic over the end of the fret -ie where the higher plastic binding was scraped away to level binding with the FRET BOARD-this leaves a tiny bit on the fret end

nice guit-was looking at one too
so hows it sound and play?

that inlay on the headstock is way cool-only others that have it are teh RD, LP artist, and ES artist to my knowledge-and cool epihone style inalys very cool-ala the howard roberts

if the protursions dont reced to your liking, it IS, im afraid, off to the luthier-but id not rush on this one- re fret is a big job and the reality is that sometimes lutheirs screw up -like surgery it should only be a last resort imho

[mr. beaumont]

Oldane, on Gibsons the frets don't extend over the binding at all, the binding itself has a part that covers the ends of the frets. See here.
Philco, this is perfectly normal. Wood will shrink significantly when dry, even over a much shorter period of time. Take it to a luthier.

Sphere's got it right.

[jazzbow]

+1 on bore oil or fret doctor. Read this;
Bore Oil for the Fife and Fret Doctor

[Philco]

Everyone has been so helpful. Thank you all for that.
I'm going to take the advice a just play this for a while. I will also try the oil idea although I feel that I will eventually re fret.

Guitars are complex in their simplicity.

I'm sure some of you have done the thing where you pick up a guitar and strum an open chord and just KNOW that this guitar is a killer.
It feels right and resonates freely and unlike many other guitars is happily in tune with whatever crazy chord you play. You can play an open D chord one octave up and it sounds sweetly in tune.

This is one of those guitars so I'm quite willing to accept these imperfections and go about fixing them in time.

I just sold my GB10. That was one of the best made and finished instruments I have owned. Absolutely flawless finish. Just a thing of beauty to behold.
I use to stare at it just before I finished up and went to bed of a night.
But you know I never bonded with that instrument at all.
It never really tuned up beyond the 7th fret and no matter how you adjusted the harmonics there was always 2 or 3 strings that would not tune.
I know tradition dictates that we use wooden floating bridges but I'm so glad this 775 has a tunomatic with steel saddles.
I know it's sacrilege to some but I'm leaving it just as it is.
I probably should have put one on the GB10.

You know another strange thing about the GB10............and you'll think I'm crazy..............but it always felt like the strings were not sitting on the instrument correctly.
Strange eh? I mean I used to check to see if the arc of the strings was correct.....and it was. I was constantly messing with the action. It always buzzed on the B string and a little on the E.
I had the bridge adjusted and shaved a little to seat the strings. It never really worked.
I wonder if it was the zero fret thing.
It just felt like the strings were not connected to the instrument......not cohesive or something.
Anyway I'm sure someone else will pick it up and love it forever.

Maybe some of us guitar players are a little nutty!

[Philco]

Oh by the way I contacted the seller and these are his words....

"Hi there,
I am very sorry that I missed that chip in there, I don't over look thinks and is very important to me that my customers are 100% satisfied with their purchases...
Please accept my sincere apologies, and please return the guitar, and I will refund your account once I receive the guitar back."


I'll never know if he really knew about that chunk of binding. I must admit I never saw it when I took it out of the case. It wasn't until it was laying on the Luthier's bench that I saw it.
Still, he did photograph it from every angle. Perhaps he saw it and let it slide hoping that no one would complain.

But he does offer a full refund so that's cool.

That ain't gonna happen!!!

[stevedenver]

dont want to drive you nuts
but if i were you-
ill bet the chunk fell out-ill bet it was the cracking-it was fully separated
id check around the guitar case, the floor and of course your luthiers bench-as it white-it might be easy to spot

[Lone Bear]

Very nice! The only thought I would add is that minor imperfections can add personality. ("Minor" in the eye of the beholder)

[nakim55]

Sphere, very cool profile picture of Sun Ra.

[Dennis D]

I learned a lot about binding overlay when I had my L-4 refretted by a good luthier here...most important was and is, it costs more money for any manufacturer to overlay binding over the fret ends...so, as has been correctly mentioned here, they don't normally do this- -it just costs too much....I was also told by this luthier that it was a sign of a decent instrument if the fingerboard binding covered the fret ends...
...I had some problems with the fret ends and almost considered replacing the binding with overlay style - -at least on the bottom part. - full length.....But, man that is not cheap.....
.....personally I'd take it to a luthier, and try to keep as much of the binding as is...
.....please correct me wherever I may be wrong, and good luck with the instrument
Dennis


'89 L-4 CES
'37 L-7
'77 Les Paul Artisan

[Patrick2]

I learned a lot about binding overlay when I had my L-4 refretted by a good luthier here...most important was and is, it costs more money for any manufacturer to overlay binding over the fret ends...so, as has been correctly mentioned here, they don't normally do this- -it just costs too much....I was also told by this luthier that it was a sign of a decent instrument if the fingerboard binding covered the fret ends...
...I had some problems with the fret ends and almost considered replacing the binding with overlay style - -at least on the bottom part. - full length.....But, man that is not cheap.....
.....personally I'd take it to a luthier, and try to keep as much of the binding as is...
.....please correct me wherever I may be wrong, and good luck with the instrument
Dennis


'89 L-4 CES
'37 L-7
'77 Les Paul Artisan

Pursuant to your request "please correct me wherever I may be wrong" . . I offer the following; while it is most certainly more labor intensive to put the binding on with "nubs" as fret ends, that is not the reason many skilled and talented high profile luthiers choose to do it the other way . . . put the frets on top of the binding all the way to the edges of the fret board. Most of the high end luthiers believe that the frets all the way to the end provides for a more functional finger board. They believe that doing it the other way, binding "nubs" completeing the length of the fret is purely for aesthetic reasons and not as functional. They also believe that this practice will make refretting the instrument more time consuming and thus more expensive . . . as it will. Your "good luthier" who told you that binding "overlay" is the sign of a good luthier has either told you something that is wrong . . or you misunderstood what he said. Firstly, the binding doesn't go over the frets. It butts up against the ends of the frets and is then scraped, filed and sanded down to a perfect adjoinment. Secondly, "a sign of a good luthier"?? That is a very poor statement. Some of the best luthiers . . . Bob Benedetto, Mark Campellone, too many others to list, put the frets over the binding, all the way to the end of the fret board, for the reasons mentioned above. I've got arch tops done both ways. There's really no difference, if both are done correctly . . . except for aesthetics.

[cjm]

Secondly, "a sign of a good luthier"?? That is a very poor statement.

I suspect there is something in circulation -- perhaps online -- perhaps a print publication more obscure to most guitar players than Benedetto's book -- maybe just a word of mouth thing going on where aspiring luthiers get together occasionally -- to that effect however...and I think a fair percentage of relatively unknown builders and working technicians have picked up on that and accepted it as a truism without a real basis for their opinion.

Because I've heard that before...and in fact, recently have had what I consider to have been an inferior guitar touted as an example of better, more skilled, workmanship in a side-by-side comparison with another guitar -- a guitar that to my eyes, ears, and hands, was superior in every respect to the guitar where binding nubs hid the fret ends.

[Patrick2]

I suspect there is something in circulation -- perhaps online -- perhaps a print publication more obscure to most guitar players than Benedetto's book -- maybe just a word of mouth thing going on where aspiring luthiers get together occasionally -- to that effect however...and I think a fair percentage of relatively unknown builders and working technicians have picked up on that and accepted it as a truism without a real basis for their opinion.

Because I've heard that before...and in fact, recently have had what I consider to have been an inferior guitar touted as an example of better, more skilled, workmanship in a side-by-side comparison with another guitar -- a guitar that to my eyes, ears, and hands, was superior in every respect to the guitar where binding nubs hid the fret ends.

Yeah, no doubt. It takes a lot more than well terminated binding nubs to classify a guitar as a sign of a good luthier. It took me 6 weeks to pull the trigger on an outrageously beautiful Super Eagle that I saw at Wolfe Guitars, Jupiter FL . . . because I couldn't get around the fact that the original owner ordered it back in 1994, with the frets over the binding. "Who would do such a thing???" was my first inclination. When I got over myself and bought the guitar and after it was delivered to me . . . I was very disappointed in myself for being so short sighted on the matter. Then, I bought a Guild Benedetto Johnny Smith Award . . . it too had the frets over the binding. Even though I do prefer the binding nubs, for purely aesthetic reasons, I wouldn't change a thing on my guitars whose frets go over the binding and to the end of the fret board. In fact, it's more difficult to get the very ends of the frets to look appropriately "finished" without binding on them.