The DIY LowDown- Making a Fretless

Two things about me that you need to know to get this. Well, one thing, and two things about that- I’m a teacher in my day job. That means a) I don’t have a lot of money to throw around on instruments and b) I’ve figured out how to make things, and make do, with what I’ve got.

Which is why when I got the wild hair to have a fretless bass I had to try to make it myself.

There are some projects that YouTube is great for. However, after watching a dozen how-to videos that ranged from a five minute "I Used A Kitchen Knife To Make A Fretless Bass" to a twenty minute "Part Seven of Fifteen: Choosing the Proper SandPaper" I gave up on YouTube and texted a buddy of mine about it. It turned out he'd done it before. Through a longish, patient text conversation he convinced me that it wouldn't be that hard, I could do it, it's pretty cheap, and he'd be a phone call away if I needed it.

That's all it took. I'm hesitant to start projects like this, but I'm also of the personality that when I decide I'm going to do something I jump directly in and go. I decided I was going to do it on Thursday night, and Friday after school I hit the craft store for supplies (needle nosed pliers, exacto knife, the thinnest basswood I could find, a ton of sandpaper of different grains, and glue) put the children to bed, and got to work.

Before

The first fret, no turning back now

It's a pretty straightforward process, though I did have some trepidation. I own only two basses- this one, a $200 first bass which came in a Starter Kit box with a tiny practice amp and a junk gig bag, and a Geddy Lee Signature Series Jazz bass that cost a lot more. So I only have my good bass and a back-up. I'd rather not ruin the back-up. But if I'm going to experiment on something it ain't the nice one. And this is a way of revitalizing an old instrument I never use instead of getting rid of it or spending a ton of money on it.

The frets are held in with some glue, so I took our clothes iron (I had to assure my wife I wasn’t going to break our iron, and had to promise that I’d buy a new one if I did. I was 90% sure it would be fine), set it on high, and heated up each fret to melt the glue. Then, using needle nose pliers, I gently wiggled the fret free. Repeat 22 times. This is the easiest but also the most delicate part of the process, because yank too hard and you might splinter the fretboard around the fret, which will make it harder to smooth out with sandpaper later. It’s hard to ruin the fretboard doing this, since that’s basically what you’re doing anyway, but gentle wiggles and pull will ruin it less. 

No honey, it’ll be fine. I swear. crosses fingers

Like I said, I had bought a sheet of 1/32" basswood, the narrowest sheet available. I had to sand down both the fret gap and the sheet of basswood. I literally folded the sandpaper in half and slid it into the fret gap and gently sawed it back and forth to make sure it was smooth inside.  I also cut the basswood into neck-width sections and pre-sanded the sections because even though it was the thinnest I could buy it it still wasn’t quite thin enough to sit in the fret gaps. Then I slid each section of basswood into the fret gaps. It was ok if the sections were longer or taller than the neck as long as they filled it. Sanding would fix that. I added a tiny bit of superglue just to be sure nothing would move, but those things were in there tighter than a [REDACTED].

Once the whole neck was filled in I had to trim the pieces shorter and then go at it with progressively finer sandpaper. I started with heavy grit to cut down the tall slats and as they got closer to the neck switched to finer and finer grit. It still took quite a bit of sanding and I know I took some width off the neck in the process, which is ok because the bass had a baseball bat of a neck to begin with.

Get in there

Now these are jumbo frets

What's nice about this process is once you're here you can't screw it up any more. Like, you can, but it's too late to fix it or take it back, so I could relax and go to it with the sandpaper. Which I did, a lot. Finer and finer grit, then run my hand over it and feel all the bumps and minute imperfections, feel where the fret was and the basswood was still too tall, and sand again.

By the time I finished that night the neck was nearly perfect. It was not perfectly smooth, which means I occasionally got some weird buzzing, but the friend who talked me through the process to begin with sent me a radius block that I used to finish the sanding. Now the neck is as smooth as I’m going to get it. 

Now you’re wondering how it plays. You’re excited to hear it. And so am I. The problem is, and I didn’t think about this before I started, I kinda screwed up the set up of the bass by doing this. The strings are about a mile off the fretboard, everything feels weird, and I can get that classic fretless sound for a minute, but then it all goes to hell. I need to take it to my favorite shop (Beacock Music in Vancouver, WA) for a real set up before I have a real opinion on my final product. Luckily there’s not anything happening in the world right now that would make it hard to run a simple errand like that...

Where’s that vaccuum?

What I am planning on doing is making this my Project Bass. The knobs are rubbish and cheap, and new tuners couldn’t hurt, and then new pick-ups, and maybe a new bridge. Eventually it'll be the Bass of Theseus*. But the thought of dealing with wires and electronics freaks me out. I've never done that before. Better to get the thing set up as a fretless first. Then talk myself into a soldering gun.

I am not mechanically inclined and outside of my classroom I don’t build things. But I enjoyed this process and, as I stated at the top, it was (hopefully) a great way to revitalize an instrument I wouldn’t use ever again unless I had to. 

Hey, I got through an entire post about making a homemade fretless bass without mentioning Jaco once! Nick owes me two Donna Lees and a Portrait of Tracy. 

Time to learn some Steve DiGiorgio parts

*no, I won't link to it, you Google it if you want to know what I'm talking about

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Doug Robertson is the editor of The Bass Blog, the blog component of The Bass Channel, your one stop YouTube channel for all things bass. His number one is a Mexican Geddy Lee Signature Jazz. Find books by Doug here. If you’re interested in contributing to The Bass Blog please reach out to Doug at doug@thebasschannel.net. We would love to hear from you.