Recommenation required for bound neck refret with nibs intact

whitedogbanana

I have a vintage Gibson ES that I am considering getting a refret. Can anyone point me to a luthier that can retain the nibs on a refret? Ideally in London but am willing to travel/ship the guitar. Thanks!  

Johnnyseven

@FelineGuitars ?

FelineGuitars

It can be done but is very time consuming and also means you can't true up the fingerboard, which means any corrections to the level of the neck would be taken out of the frets and sacrifice some fret height in affected areas to get a smooth level.
Also if the guitar is really quite old like a 1960s one the plastic nibs will have shrunk back so will be small and may be hard to blend with a new fresh height wire.

What year is the guitar?

whitedogbanana

@felineGuitars it's 1962. I'll have a closer look at the nibs later. They might have shrunken like you describe...

Neckwringer

Is'nt that Steve Robinsons area of expertise?..........

JezWynd

S'cuse my ignorance, but what are nibs?

guitars4you

JezWynd said:

S'cuse my ignorance, but what are nibs?

little kids you can box round the ears at times

No seriously - on a Gibson fingerboard the binding runs over the ends of the frets and it is these ends that are called a nib - many players will refret and let the fret sit over the binding and nibs - I've known many players re-fret a Gibson just so they can choose different fret wire gauge and get rid of the nibs - I believe Bonamassa has on many guitars, certainly many of his signature models are spec'd that way - PRS and many others don't bother

badlydrawnbanjo

@SteveRobinson is the man for the job 

SteveRobinson

Neckwringer said:c

Is'nt that Steve Robinsons area of expertise?..........

I've never done a refret and preserved the nibs. I have put nibs back with molten binding after fretting though.

If I get around to Mark's guitar before Friday I'll have refretted three 60s Gibsons this week, all "over the binding".

JezWynd

Thanks @guitars4you, an excellent explanation.