1966 GIbson ES-335 Refret

Tuesday, March 14th, 2017

This is a 1966 Gibson ES-335 that came into the shop needing some fret work and a new nut.

Here, you can see the divots in the frets from years of regular usage. We will be replacing these with brand new stainless steel frets.

A complete refret will typically include a new nut to ensure that the string height is correct along the fret board.. It was especially pertinent on this guitar as the original nut was extremely worn out and cracked.

On guitars of this age, it is common to see cracking in the finish like this. Where this is no structural damage and this is an original finish, we will leave it alone.

We started by removing the damaged nut and the old frets.

We then sanded the fretboard to the correct radius and cleaned the fret slots of any debris.

After cutting the new frets, they were installed in the board and sanded and crowned to the correct size and shape.

Here is a close up shot of the finished frets after some final polishing and treatment of the fret board.

The new bone nut is looking great and is aligned perfectly with the new frets.

After a setup and a quick test, this guitar is ready for several more years of playing!

1966 GIbson ES-335 Refret

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