HG Thor Epoxy Fretless

HG Thor Epoxy Fretless for Bass & Guitar

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Epoxy coatings on most types of fretboards since 1980, originally inspired by ideas expressed in a '77 BP interview with the late great Jaco Pastorius*. Fretboards are cleanly defretted, fretlines inlaid, then carefully leveled/prepared before epoxy treatment. Worn and grooved fingerboards can be redressed to look like new. Inlay artwork is available.

Professional highest grade epoxy is applied using specialized techniques and tooling developed over years of R&D. Epoxy coating constructed by layering and then brought to a very musical, beautiful and uniform mirror gloss.

Epoxy thickness is hard enough to protect the wood, but designed to allow the neck woods to resonate naturally. Sustain is greatly increased due to reduced friction of the string against the hard surface, as compared to the inherently softer fingerboard wood. The resulting tone is articulate and rich in partials with increased "mwah" and swell. Fingering and plucking hand technique combined with a tweak of the tone knob can access a large spectrum of tonal variety and nuance.

Edges will not delaminate and are carefully dressed to blend with the neck finish. Low action is possible due to much attention paid to overall fingerboard linearity. This hard and resilient epoxy surface can last a lifetime, even with roundwounds.

Š 2008 HG Thor Guitar Lab

Xavier Padilla: "The effect epoxy produces in the sound ...is amazing: everything is brighter and all details come out clearer. As an instrument, I feel like the bass becomes more sensitive. Vibrato, which is essential in fretless playing, becomes more responsive, as if the rotating movement of the finger upon the string was now better "heard" by the neck. I would say that with the HG Thor epoxy method on the fingerboard, a fretless electric bass still gets a woody sound, but with a new element that brings it closer to that of a grand piano." (Mr. Padilla is a master bassist/composer, toured, wrote and recorded with the Gipsy Kings 2000-2005 and is a pioneer in music notation and bass design.)

Frets and Fretlines: There are a number of options to select from. Frets are carefully removed and inlay applied. Favorites include maple veneer or black vulcanized sheeting. Other woods are available.

Nuts: The nut must be removed in order to properly install an HG Thor Epoxy Fretless coating. In the event a nut will not be gently coaxed out of its slot without breaking, options available are: bone (my fav!), plastic, delrin, micarta, corian, Graph Tech, or anything you prefer.

Maple fretlines offer a clean and good looking reference on rosewood boards:

Famous name signature fretless with a stock polyurethane coating removed, board leveled and epoxy applied:

Low action is possible on many basses. Here 3/64"! 3/64ths

Inlay restoration/new:

We are authorized installers for Audere Audio products plus carry a complete line of Fender pickups and accessories and other famous name brands such as Bartolini and Nordstrand etc.

* "It ain't bragging if you can back it up!" -Jaco Pastorius

In addition to being hard and polished, the epoxy surface is very planar and uniform. This allows low action and fine tuning of desired amount of "mwaa" effect. Simply dial in your favorite sound with the tone control!