Trini Lopez Refret and Inlay Replacement

I'm told that this Trini Lopez spent the past twenty years in a shack on a beach in Hawaii. Its frets have been leveled and dressed to the point where there's almost no height remaining; in fact, the frets had been beveled to the point where you could see the exposed fret tang from above, and the fingerboard edges were severely rolled. Many of the original pearloid inlays were missing, and the ones that remained were badly damaged. After pulling the frets, I planed the fingerboard to reestablish the proper 12" radius, eliminating the excessive fingerboard roll, in order to provide a good even surface for the new frets to seat to. After leveling the fingerboard, I had to route a number of the inlay channels deeper, as I had to sand partially through a few of them. I then cut and installed genuine Mother of Pearl inlays. After the inlay was completed, I refretted the instrument with jumbo fretwire and set the instrument up with 10 - 46 gauge D'Addario strings.

• Ian P