www.FretlessBass.com

Sometime last year, I bought my teacher's old fretless Warwick (corvette standard). I've done some work on it myself, with the nut and bridge, I put on flatwound strings, and it's set up almost perfectly. Theo only thing is, he (my teacher) used to use heavy roundwound srings, and there are some pretty good lines/divets where the strings were. I was thinking I would sand down the fingerboard, which is ebony, But I wasn't sure of the possible negative effects it could have.
Any Advice?

Honestly, on an instrument like that, I would go to a qualified luthier. May cost a bit, but it sure beats making a boo-boo.

Yes I agree with point 19, get it done properly. People tend to forget that when dressing a board the correct materiel has to be used, there are different radius sanding blocks that luthiers use.

Your decision also depends on whether the fingerboard has been previously sanded. If there is plenty of wood and you can afford the professional service that would be the safest.

If you have some experience in this type of work you can drop CA (luthier grade super glue) into the ruts as a build-up. This avoids having to sand down to the bottom of the deepest rut. Then sand using (preferably) a radius sanding block. My Warwick Streamer 5 had a pretty flat neck so it might be possible to sand the CA filled ruts without a radius block but you would need some experience and skill at fingerboard work.

I did this on an Alembic Fretless 6 having a Maccasar Ebony fingboard. Came out great, could not even detect the difference between CA and ebony. African (black) ebony is probably too dark to use untinted CA.

If this is your first neck surface job you should know that some knowledge and tools are required. Definantly safer to let a pro do the job.

Super Glues here: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Glues,_adhe ... Glues.html

point19 wrote:Honestly, on an instrument like that, I would go to a qualified luthier. May cost a bit, but it sure beats making a boo-boo.

I agree with point 19