It's been a few days since my last post. Yesterday I reshaped the fretboard. All the frets were removed using heat (battery-operated ColdHeat soldering gun) and fret yankers. The gaps left looked sort of frankensteinish. Radius blocks were not used for the board's reshaping, only the longer levelers. As per Mr. Erlewine's book, this process is supposed to naturally compound the fretboard, if only slightly. The neck was bolted onto the stabilizing jig. Each leveler covered either one-quarter or one-third of the fretboard and made a natural "lane." I gave four strokes for each lane and then started over. When the sandpaper became clogged with maple sawdust, I either stopped and cleaned the leveler or changed to another leveler (that's an advantage of having several levelers).

Today I begin the refretting process. The fret slots have all been cleaned and checked for width and depth. The frets are pre-radiused, precut, and laid out on a piece of styrofoam. The fretboard is waxed; then superglue is applied, and the frets are hammered in. I'm getting used to the sequence: bend/cut/lay-out/wax/glue/hammer. I'll probably get only half the board finished tonight.