FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Applause Guitar

Question:
Some time ago my brother bought an Applause guitar. Applause were made by Ovation as a cheaper line of their guitars. They had aluminum fretboards with the fets incorporated in the aluminum molding. The problem we need help with is that the frets have now been dressed twice since the guitar was purchased and they cannot bee dressed any more -they are not separate frets they are part of the aluminum fretboard. I regard this problem as a design fault and was wondering how other people have solved it. Has anyone had any help from Ovation or Applause? If yes who did you contact to get the help? We haven’t had much luck. The basic problem is that apart from the fret problem this is an excellent wondrous and lovely guitar and it seems to be a shame to throw it away because of this fret problem.

Answer:
Well, you could replace the fretboard or the entire neck, but it hardly seems worth it for that guitar.  Perhaps you could file all the frets off entirely, then refret with standard fretwire.  Aluminum can be worked with standard woodworking tools, just not with _my_ tools.) Fun aluminum trivia fact: aluminum dust is quite explosive (much more so than wood dust), and has been the cause of many woodshop dust collector fires over the years. Well, if you've had dressed the frets twice, there's really not much left to dress.  And finding help from Kaman music is almost null and void. I had Applause 12-string dressed once and the guitar tech charged me $35.  If I was to dress it 2 more times, it would cost me $105.  $250 more could get you an Ovation WITH a wooden neck at discount catalogs. I would suggest either giving it away or selling it to someone who you hate...  Even pawn shops are getting smarter about the guitars they sell. You're right - it was a short-sighted design feature on Ovation's part, no question, one that they've since corrected. They only made those aluminum-neck models with the integral fretboards for a few years. My guess is that, initially, some marketing genius won over their board by saying: Look, studies indicate that guitar purchasers buying guitars at this price point don't even KNOW about stuff like fret dressing and fret replacement.  Besides, at that stage, if they're still playing the guitar, we want them moving up to one of our Made-In-USA Ovations, not fixing up their old Applauses, and our dealers tell us they're with us on this one! So I see that design as a combination of a production shortcut (it's cheaper by far to make a molded aluminum neck and paint it brown than it is to make a wood neck and fret it) and wishful thinking on the company's part. Well, there's nothing that can be done about it, so the company isn't going to be any help. Well, I've never heard an aluminum neck Applause described as >excellent wondrous and>lovely before, but you all clearly love the guitar, and it would be a shame to toss it into the nearest dumpster. My suggestion is that you set the action up a little higher and use it for a slide guitar, frankly. You should also know that you've gotten far, FAR more mileage out of this instrument than most people - those models really were designed as throwaways, and I haven't seen one in years.  The last time I heard a complaint like yours was about ten years ago. So, if nothing else, you all have gotten your money's worth out of it. And money is what it comes down to, in the end.  Even in mint condition this particular guitar is not worth a whole lot, and with worn-out frets it's worth maybe a hundred dollars. It would take many hundreds of dollars worth of work to grind off that aluminum fretboard and replace it with a wooden one, which is what you'd need to do to get this instrument restored. If you could find a guitar repairman willing to do the work.  Which is dubious, at best. I admire your commitment to this guitar, Bill, but aside from my slide guitar suggestion I don't know what else to tell you. Well, it's maybe not all that bad. Because aluminum transfers heat really well, a household iron could be used to cook the old fingerboard off. A new rose wood finger board could be had for about $20, and then fretted for about $90. Whether it's practical from a financial standpoint, or would far exceed the value of the instrument, since there was sentiment involved, and also comments about liking the tone of the guitar, this option is not out of the question. Sometimes these aspects can over-run the good advice of not investing more in a repair then what the guitar is worth. As always, the collective wisdom of this group serves to keep people well informed. It occurred to me that there might be a less expensive alternative. It's still more money than most people would want to spend, and it still might not work very well. But instead of putting a wooden fingerboard on there, a more viable option might be to grind off the frets, then cut a very shallow slot where each one was.  (You wouldn't want to cut the normal depth of a fret slot, since they probably made that aluminum fairly thin, in order to save weight, and you wouldn't want to cut through to the truss rod channel.) Get some standard German silver fret wire, some with the closest profile to what the frets on the guitar had originally.  Cut each fret to length. Then using nippers, remove most of the tang on each fret, leaving just enough to serve as a guide into the shallow slots that have been cut.  Then epoxy the frets into place (I'm thinking epoxy rather than Superglue for this application, as I'm not sure if the shear strength on Superglue would hold those frets in place as long as epoxy, given the way fingers bang up against them all the time). These would still have to be dressed like any normal fret, at this point, but you might get some more life out of the guitar this way. I'm thinking you might not even need a slot for the frets. Just grind it flat and find some tang-less fretwire. In fact, I think this is the way the Parker Fly is made. Seems like I remember seeing a picture of a fingerboard with the frets already glued on. Wonder where they get that wire... Some lutes have frets made of catgut. Maybe you could achieve the same thing here with the Frankenvation guitar. Use loops of wound bronze strings for frets. Personally, I'd be more inclined to make it a fretless 6 string bass. I did this with a few guitars whose necks were so badly gone that they were nothing but art. After brutalizing them with a big belt sander, I set them both up in standard guitar tuning. The steel string was very nice and horney sounding (settle down Lumpy!), but there was too much difference between the wound and unwound strings. The wound ones sounded the best. On the nylon string, the overall sound was very sweet and mellow with a subtle hint of chocolate overtones, and a somewhat spicy, woody and very clean aftertaste. Complex chords were a total b***h, but the sound was great! I guess with the steel string kind, one could do what Lumpy is saying and put on some monster strings and tune it down. I ultimately sold both instruments to very happy customers. Maybe there is a market for all the twisted necks in people's boneyards?