Neck wear from roundwounds

[webspeare]

Just curious how others feel about this. I am a devoted roundwound user and am developing a fair amount of wear on the neck in various places along the string lines. In some places, the wear has even gone through the layer of finish so the wood underneath is exposed. Yet I am not overly concerned, since I own the bass (a 2008 4003FL) to play it ... and in doing so, want the great sound and playability I am able to achieve with the roundwounds and my low-action setup. The wear has not had a negative impact on the sound. (By the way, prior to getting my 4003FL, I was using a Warwick fretless and was getting the same wear except that the neck wasn't finished).

So my question is: does this bother others? I know many might try to avoid such wear by using flatwounds, etc.

Second question: does anyone ever do "touch up" work on the neck when the wear gets severe? If so, what do you do?

Thanks!

[jps]

...does anyone ever do "touch up" work on the neck when the wear gets severe?.

Thanks!

Not until the fingerboard is worn down to the truss rods. Then, Bondo seems to do the trick, nicely.

[rikk]

Are you using roundwounds on a fretless? I'm not a fretless player, but I thought flats would be the thing to use.

[webspeare]

I do use roundwounds, because I like the brightness and punch I can achieve. I love the way they make the bass sing.

[jps]

If that is what you want to use, great; they do sing in a different way then flats or half rounds do. As to the fingerboard, when necessary have it leveled, and then eventually just have a new fingerboard put on the bass, if you have it long enough to have to do so.

[teb]

I have rounds on my Pedulla Buzz, basically because that fretless/roundwound/coated-fingerboard sound is exactly what I bought that bass for in the first place.
sound sample - http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/M ... etless.mp3

My other fretless basses all have unvarnished boards, so if I want a more "normal" sound, I use one of them. The Pedulla folks suggest using nickel rounds, rather than stainless rounds, as they are easier on the finish and basically say that eventually rounds will wear holes in the fingerboard's coating - but it's about the only way to get that sound if it's what you're after. Their repair department will strip and re-coat fingerboards for something like $275 on a Pedulla nd $325 on other brands.

I haven't ever played a fretless Rickenbacker, but I suspect that the varnished board might also be a factor in the tone. How much of that you can wear away before the tone changes is hard to say, but if it gets to the point where you don't seem to be getting the sound you used to get from it, it might be worth having somebody strip and re-coat the fingerboard. I would think that refinishing a fretless board is actually a pretty simple procedure.

[byu]

This subject has been discussed in many threads here in the past. I detail what I did to mine with Petit's Poly Poxy in this thread here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=300189&start=0&hilit=poly+poxy

[cassius987]

So my question is: does this bother others? I know many might try to avoid such wear by using flatwounds, etc.

Second question: does anyone ever do "touch up" work on the neck when the wear gets severe? If so, what do you do?

When my fingerboard had the original CV finish, before it got planed to fix some small "dips" in the wood causing setup issues, even flatwounds left a mark in the varnish. I never tried rounds with that finish. When it got shot with amber-tinted poly after my luthier planed it, I switched to rounds, and have had no problems whatsoever. There are small marks in the finish but no material has been lost or worn away that I can tell, and this is a bass I play nearly every day, with rounds on it for close to a year now. I would say that with the original factory finish of a 2008 however, rounds will inevitably lead to some damage. Will they hurt the raw bubinga? I have no idea. If it wears down evenly it should be no problem, but if it develops problems you can always do what I did for a bit over $100 and get a much tougher finish (no, it doesn't change the sound at all...). The guy who did mine is Dave Dougherty of Colfax Guitar Shop (Denver, CO).

Are you using roundwounds on a fretless? I'm not a fretless player, but I thought flats would be the thing to use.

Tons of people use rounds on fretless basses. With the right setup it can sound very good; with a hyper-low action like fretless is capable of it can sound kind of a bit nasty.

[rickenbrother]

Only one of my three fretless basses has flatwound strings on it. The two with round wound strings have minimal wear. Just like with fretted bass guitars, it's not just the type of strings you use, but also how heavy handed your fretting hand is. Instruments of heavy, ham handed players will have wear on the frets and/or fingerboards of their instruments. Someone who owned my 4001S before me was so heavy handed, he wore away areas of the fingerboard with the strings...and it's a fretted bass! I really doubt it would have mattered what type of strings he used. The guy probably also had terrible intonation on a fretted bass on the lower notes because of how he played.