Here's another Martin Eric Clapton signature guitar. I'd appraised this guitar some months back. A hump has developed on the fingerboard after the 14th fret. The neck had too much relief, the replacement bone nut was slotted too low and the high E string was slotted too close to the edge of the fingerboard, and the bridge was lifting slightly. The guitar should be de-fretted after the 12th fret to level the hump on the fingerboard and re-fretted, a new bone nut and a proper set up was in order. The 1st owner was not willing to address the various issues and sold the guitar. By the time the 2nd owner brought the guitar to my attention; someone had already subjected the neck to some form of heat treatment in an attempt to "level" the hump. What a lot of people don't realize is the glue most luthiers and manufacturers use for instrument construction will come apart when subjected to extreme heat. Subjecting any part of an instrument to extreme heat is a BIG NO NO!!! Some repair people resort to heat treatment in an attempt to correct or "straighten" the neck. This almost never works IMHO and one is doing more damage than good to the instrument!!! In this instance, the heat treatment resulted in the fingerboard lifting off the body.

The 1st thing to do was to glue down the tongue of the fingerboard and bridge. The bridge should be removed and re-glued but as the lifting is very minimal, the owner and I decided to just glue down the bridge. We'll do a proper bridge re-glue if the bridge separates from the top again. Notice the height of the last couple of frets in relation to the other frets. The last 6 frets have been filed very low in an attempt to compensate for the hump on the fingerboard.

Even with the last couple of frets already dressed, the hump is still present. The frets have to be removed in order to level the hump. Notice how the straight edge sit along the top of the frets after the last 6 frets were removed.

The frets are removed and the hump is levelled. We're now ready to fret the neck.

The neck is fretted.

The new frets are filed flush to the edge of the fingerboard, lightly rounded and dressed, buffed and polished.

Here's the new bone nut and the other 2 bone nuts which are poorly slotted. Notice how the high E slot is too close to the edge.

Identifying details of the subject instrument.

The guitar’s all done up and ready to go.