[pkatzman]

I recently (er, a few months back) acquired a Johnson bass for free. A cheap little starter bass, but a free one nonetheless. I decided to experiment with it, so with a putty knife, a pair of pliers and 20 minutes I took off all the frets. And it sound quite good, I might add.

But now the problem is I have around 20 little vertical-line-shaped holes in the neck.

Any advice on what to fill them with? I'm thinking I might just take off the neck and bring it in to a hardware store and show it to them, but I figured I'd test the waters here, first.

Thanks!

[Zodiac]

Playdough, seriously.

I dunno, just leave the holes as they are? Didn't even know you could remove the frets on a bass.

[Wrao]

I believe jaco did it with just some wood glue and veneer, then he applied generous coats of some hardening oil(tung oil or the like). I think that they make special wood putties as well that are somewhere inbetween a plastic and a glue. Yeah, there are wood fillers, special types of expoy and the like. Don't worry too much about getting it aesthetically perfect, what matters most is that there is *something* in there. But even then, a bass can survive with fret-holes on the neck.

[alcimedes]

I was going to say start with wood putty. They're designed to be like wood when dry. The only thing I'd worry about is all the vibration it's going to be exposed to from playing.

[billybobsky]

What you really want is some balsa wood slats of the appropriate size to fill the voids, glue them in place of course... They should stay put...