Emmons Fretboard

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Can't decide if I want to honor and keep this battle scarred old board with a deep glossy black on silver or replace it with this Tom Bradshaw 12 string board with a matte black on white. I sure prefer the depth of black on the old. That matte black is kind of weak. I'm leaning toward keeping the old one on but I'm feeling super good about the major work I did on this, underneath, and part of me says it deserves to get dressed up. I'm definitely going to do what I'm going to do. I just don't know what that is yet.

Thoughts?

Colin Swinney · From: Wisconsin, USA

That matte black isn't doing any favors. Even the atom colors on the original look more vibrant. I can see your dilemma but I say keep it as is. Nothing wrong with showing signs of being well loved.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Yep. All of that is where I'm leaning.
One thought -- find out from Tom whether it is water or solvent based ink and give the new one an appropriate spray coat of something glossy....lacquer or poly or acrylic. It ought to bring a ton more depth out of that matte black. I do sort of like the scars of the old one, though.

Kelcey ONeil · From: Sevierville, TN

Keep the original!

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I don't think the old one comes off without getting totally destroyed in the process. I remember the same deal with my old Bud. That doesn't sit well with me at all.

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

I would fasten the new one over the old one with double backed tape.
If you don't like it you can always take it off with no damage to the old one. Very Happy

Erv

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Interesting compromise but this thin vinyl board would need a lot of adhesive to lay flat and I don't like the odds of the old board surviving peeling that off, as badly as it's given up so much ink already.

Jerry Overstreet · From: Louisville Ky

That old board with all the blemishes would distract me every time I sat down to play it. Particularly if the remainder of the guitar has been freshened up.

I don't suppose there's any way to touch up the old one?

I like your idea of glossing up the matte board if you have the means to do it nicely. Clear coating it would likely brighten up the colors.

I've not had much luck saving old fretboards either. People say heat and working through the adhesive with a plain guitar string works, but the ones I tried wrinkled beyond saving. Sometimes you get lucky though.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

That'll buy me time to make my decision -- learning what kind of inks are used on the new one and seeing what I can spray it with that won't bleed it to death. If I can make that work and work well, then it gives me a much stronger option and a much tougher choice. I can't see using the new one, as is.

--just saw the line about touching it up. I can't imagine that looking at all good. But worth seeing if something might make it look a little less like it crash landed somewhere.

scott murray · From: Asheville, NC

I bought new fretboards for my JCH when I got it, but just ended up touching up the originals with a sharpie which honestly did the trick. not saying that will work here, but touching up is an option.

congrats on the sweet new (old) axe, Jon!
_________________
1965 Emmons S-10, 3x5 • Emmons LLIII D-10, 10x12 • JCH D-10, 10x12 • Beard MA-8 • Oahu Tonemaster

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Thanks Scott!
Right after Jerry suggested that, I decided that rather than just reject a perfectly good suggestion, I'd try a Sharpie on a few small spots. Black Sharpie has a purple hue but I don't know that it looks any worse and maybe it looks better. I'll do some more areas and see if I can improve the overall appearance without trying to pretend that I'm restoring it to 'new'.

Tiny Olson · From: Mohawk River Valley, Upstate NY

Hey Jon... I really love the look of the old, silver / chrome frets on my Emmons D-10 guitars. The white frets look okay on some of the wood-neck, lacquer Emmons guitars I've seen but, I prefer the classic looking silver frets, especially on mica horns.

Like others have said, I understand your dilemma in choosing. Back when I got my new rosewood D-10 in early 1975 it came with white frets. Later that year I replaced them with silver fretted boards. Like you said, taking the original boards off pretty much destroyed them. It was worth it though.

Have you contacted anyone like Lynn Stafford, Billy Knowles or Tommy Cass about getting a new board with silver frets ??

I hope you, Stu, Fooch and myself can get all together one of these days very soon. Hope you're well too.

Best Regards
Chris "Tiny" O.

Joe Krumel · From: Hermitage, Tn.

leave the original in place. sharpie touch-up would be a quick fix. I love old guitars with battle scars.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I'm going to see if I can scare up a half pint of black lacquer....hmmm....maybe some goth nail polish at Target. And see if I can do a little better than the Sharpie. Bottom line, I do like the look of the silver lines a lot more than the white and I definitely like battle scars.

Hey Tiny -- fingers crossed, we might be able to finally do stuff this summer, eh? You, me, Stu & Fooch could have ourselves a big time!

Per Berner · From: Skovde, Sweden

I would go to a signmaker's shop with the new fretboard and ask them to scan it and print it on thin brushed or polished aluminium or stainless steel, then put on a glossy clearcoat. Wouldn't be cheap, but not overly expensive either. I had a custom 3D-routed fretboard made for my Ben-Rom out of 2.5â€“3 mm aluminium, filled with black paint and then polished â€“ the cost was the equivalent of 150 bucks.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Thanks. But definitely over & beyond my intentions. Ironically, I am a retired screenprinter with 40 years of experience. There was a time that I had everything I needed to do this right.

George Kimery · From: Limestone, TN, USA

I'm glad this topic came up. My 74 Emmons fretboards look new except one really small ding on the back neck.They are black steel with white frets, which match the black and white name plate. Everything is flat black finish except the fretboards, and they are gloss. They just don't look right. I have two of the Bradshaw flat black vinyl fretboards I've just haven't gotten around to installing them yet. I only got them for cosmetic reasons. My guitar has wood necks, so I have concern that the thin vinyl will not have a smooth surface to mount to. I've been thinking about sticking the vinyl on top of the fretboards. I had not thought about spraying the original fretboards with flat clear coat until this post. After reading all the comments, I think I will stay with the original fret boards and try clear coating the back neck. I already have the strings off.
FWIW, the vinyl fretboards have a 3M peel and stick backing. If anybody is interested, I will probably be selling the Bradshaw boards. They are first class.

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Steelers are real fussy about their fretboards.
I had an Emmons years ago that didn't seem quite right when I sat down to it.
I located the problem, the fret lines were wider than I was used to.
I contacted Emmons and they sent me fretboards with thinner lines, and that took care of the problem. Very Happy

Erv

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

So -- Tom Bradshaw and I have been writing back and forth all day, talking about this. I think his interest has been 50/50 wanting to make a customer happy and wanting to quench his own curiosity. When I got back from Lowes with some Rustoleum clear gloss spray there was an email waiting, him telling me that he was going to try to spray one with.....Rustoleum clear gloss spray. Smile

His results were blotchy. This does not surprise me since some experimenting tells me that the boards are already top coated. Neither water nor lacquer thinner affects the ink at all. Water beads up. You don't even get any darkening effect while it is wet. So this tells me that even if you could apply a gloss top coat, the gloss finish would probably not affect the colors or the perception of them at all. The board would look exactly as it does now. But shiny. Which was not really the point.
I picked up some model maker's Testors gloss enamel and did some touching up with a tiny brush. It looks pretty decent in certain light. It looks awful in other light. I'm trusting the awful.
I am definitely going to leave this board for now, maybe I'll try some more touch up experiments. I have Tom's board here should I change my mind. So I'm good.

Jerry Overstreet · From: Louisville Ky

Apologies if my touch-up suggestion caused an unpleasant result. I was going to add the Sharpie comment as I meant to include it, but someone else did so.

The purplish hue of the Sharpie bothers me less than the bare metal. Black is pretty forgiving and I get used to the look pretty quick. I use it all the time for touching up black hardware, cases etc.

The thing that I should have mentioned is that paint, even light amounts, adds unwanted height to the surface that the Sharpie ink doesn't. That will probably be annoyingly noticeable when looking down on the fretboard, particularly in reflective light.

Then you have edges and borders to deal with. Of course, masking those off will help.

I don't guess there's any real good solution, rather what's acceptable or less annoying.

Thanks for posting your findings to this point. I'm sure it will be helpful to others as well.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

no no no, Jerry. When you mentioned that it set off "of course!" thoughts and I knew it was something I had to try. I've spent so many hours doing exactly this sort of touching up in my life as a fine art print maker.

Jim Pitman · From: Waterbury Ctr. VT 05677 USA

Calligraphy pen rather than sharpie?
"LePen" technical drawing pen comes to mind.

Off topic but...If anyone ever needs to touch up black Tolex, Mars Black Acrylic is perfect. It's very thick and can can be built up to match tolex. It has the right reflectivity an one can also impress a pattern into it. I drip wax on an area of tolex, let it dry peel off then use that wax wafer to impress a pattern.
Mars black is too thick for fretboards though.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Jim! That wax impression trick is fantastic!

Bill Terry · From: Bastrop, TX

FWIW.. (bearing in mind that both my Emmons guitars have the glossy fretboard with chrome fret marking) I've had a few occasions where the guitar angle and stage lighting is just right, so that the chrome part of the fretboard reflects a 'dark' background from the player position, and they virtually disappear. It's kind of interesting when that happens. I think I've seen other Emmons guys comment on the same phenomena.. Smile

That said, I don't like the look of the white ones, so I deal with it when it does happen. It's not often, maybe once a year out of 80 gigs or so, but it DOES pop-up once in while, usually in a small dark club.
_________________
Lost Pines Studio
"I'm nuts about bolts"

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Bill -- I'm surprised that you are the first person to mention this here. I thought I remembered reading about this fact and Tom, in our conversations today, brought it up.

White lines on my Sho-Bud board -- they look natural. White lines on my Williams. Beautiful. But there's something about the chrome on the Emmons that just looks right. Seeing the fretboard while playing is overrated. Meh.

If I ever put the Bradshaw board on, it will look super.
But....

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