Official Luthiers Forum!

I only fairly recently had my hands on an electric guitar with a coated fretboard. It seems to be done only on maple.

Given the high wear on this area I wonder what coating is used as it seems to survive pretty well? Ordinary nitro...?

Dave

My guess would be a polyester finish.

Whatever was used on the rest of the neck..... Nitro was used for years by Fender.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Nitro was used most of the time in the past as Brian said.

Finish was applied because maple picks up dirt and looks like **** when it does. Finishing the fret board creates issues with serviceability in the future come refret time and limits which shops can do the work and do it well because of the need to deal with either preserving the finish or refinishing it.

I would avoid finishing a fret board unless you are intentionally doing Fender like vintage stuff and have to.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

It does give a neat look. But like Hesh said there are drawbacks.

Rickenbacker finishes their fingerboards on almost everything I think. As a result there's not a ton of people in my area that are even willing to take them in for fretwork let alone a refret.

Exactly! After having considerable experience with Riks Dan maybe this is a good thing.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Right thanks people. The example I saw was played by a proper guitarist and he said he liked the feel of the finish. As an (amateur) player of classicals it certainly felt pretty weird to me.

Dave

I refretted a Ric last month for a guy who said he wanted the finish stripped off. That made me happy.

You should do whatever it takes to retain this customer for life.

I have an old '78 Rick bass I'm selling. It's in perfect condition other than some green tarnishing on the frets under that thick fingerboard finish. I guess the finish doesn't stick to the fret, and moisture gets to the base of the fret and stays there. I wish it wasn't finished.

Those Rick frets are also ridiculously tiny. They are more like nubs than frets.