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Refret - Nibs or no nibs?


Bozz

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I'd be interested in hearing some opinions on having a refret done on guitars with fretboard binding. It is obviously more work and more expensive to retain the nibs and keep the fret ends inside the plastic binding material. What would be the pro's and con's of removing the nibs and having frets extend over the binding? You obviously wouldn't want to remove the nibs on a high value vintage instrument, but what about an everyday player, or newer models?

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Realistically, the nibs serve no purpose in a playing sense or a tactile sense. When i has my old SJ200 refretted I had them removed and it allowed a bit more wiggle room for pull-offs on the top E. The feel of the neck was minutely different, but not enough to bother anyone.

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I currently have two modern Gibsons with binding nibs. You can barely even notice them unless you are looking for them, since the frets are almost the color of the binding, and the nibs are tiny.

 

My 1947 L-7 had a bound fretboard, but the frets (I'm pretty sure they were original) didn't even extend over the binding.

 

You'll get a neater job if the nibs just get filed down when/if the guitar is re-fretted. As Jinder says, good technician would cut back the tang of the fret slightly from the end when doing a re-fret, so that the fret ends overlap the binding. This looks pretty cool to my eye.

 

It would be difficult to re-fret and perfectly match up the fret ends to the existing nibs, so I wouldn't lose sleep over retaining them. If I had a 1936 AJ, I might think differently.

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I play the squares so often that the nibs tends to be overlooked. Then when suddenly noticing them again I must say they get appreciation.

Also though I basically find them - don't know the word here - but something in between posh-sissy-over-refined for beat music.

 

Never had nibs on the D-35 (guess it's not a Mart-thing) and the white bindings were enough.

But seasons change and I now like binded head-stocks as well.

 

Maybe the fact that they are so detailish that you forget then rediscover them has a point.

 

Nibs has a quiet life of their own - and sometimes send a secret message to you : r e m e m b e r o u r l e v e l

 

, , , but they are mainly for girls, aren't they. .

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