[soldierkahn]

Today Im gonna show you how to one, remove those ugly looking dot inlays, and two, fillem in to ebonize your fretboard.

Before we get started, here is a list of materials you will need.
*'s indicate preferred but not required item

Plastic Wood - Cellulose Fibre FIller
Alcohol - 70% Isopropyl
Masking Tape
Razor blades
*Power Drill
Screwdriver
*Leatherdye or that Stew Macs shit
Lemon Oil
3M Finishing Pad (replaces 00-grade steel wool)
3M Striping Pads (replaces 0-grade steel wool)
Old toothbrush
Sponges






Step 1: Clean your fretboard really well. I like to use windex because it wont raise the grain, and it wont damage the wood. Once youve cleaned it with the windex, use your alcohol to dry everything out really good.



Step 2: once your fretboard is all clean, your gonna wanna take the power drill we talked about, and your gonna want to use a sharp bit. I happened to have some old burs laying around from my Dremel, so i popped it in the drill. What your gonna want to do is make a tiny hole in the center of all of the dots, not all the way through the inlay! The reason we are doing this is to make it easier for the screw we'll be using later to "bite" into the material without you having it "dance" all over it trying to get the screw started.




Step 3: Now youre gonna drill a tiny screw into the inlay, making sure to not go very deep, just enough to where itll bite really good into the material (this will come easier to you as you go). Once you have inserted the screw, grab your pliers and slightly wiggle it to break the glue beneath, and then give it a firm tug to pull it straight out. Once your done with that you need to get the glue out of there. Not a hard task, so im not even gonna go there, lol.







Step 4: Now grab your masking tape and tape off all your dots as individual elements. Once you have them taped off, take your wood filler and fill your holes, using your finger or a tool to be sure to pack it into the hole firmly (i used my fingers, lol). Once you have your filler set in there comes the waiting part. I like to give it 24 hours to dry, even though the label only called for 3 hours (better safe than sorry right?).



Step 5: Now, once the material has dried, remove the tape(which is gonna remove a lot of the excess filler), and take your scratch pads and scrub them down clean to look as so.



Step 6: Now your gonna want to use your masking tape to tape off the fretboard as well as the metal fretwire, just to make cleanup easier. Using a Q-tip, soak it into the dye, and then lightly dab your dots. We want them to have an already dark complection so that when we apply the dye to whole board, the dots arent lighter than the fretboard (you didnt want to see them anyways right?).




Step7: Now the fun part. Apply a LIGHT coating of dye to the board. Your gonna be applying 8-10 light coats to ensure absorbtion into the wood instead of culminating in a sticky pool on top of the wood. Allow to dry between coats. If you arent gonna use a space heater or something else to aid in curing, allow 4 hours to dry between coats. With the help of the space heater, you can reduce that to 1 hour between coats.



A little space heater to help cure (dry and harden) everything quicker. After each coat, take your Gray scratch pad (the one that replaces the 00 grade steel wool) and scuff the wood between coats to ensure even and smooth absorbtion. Trust me, in the end youll be happy you did.



Step 8: Now once you have gotten your board as dark as you want it to be, sand everything down again with your Gray scratch pad again, but only do this LIGHTLY!!! We are only wanting to remove excess dye and dirt. After youve completed that, remove all of your masking tape SLOWLY. Then grab your lemon oil and soak it!!!! And i do mean drench that board. Its gonna suck it all back in, and you gona have to apply probably 2-3 THICK coats of lemon oil to it before itll start to "weep" oil back out. I like to allow 2-3 hours between coats to allow for full absorbtion, but you use your best judgement. Once your board starts to weep the oil back out, you have fully renourished it. Now your done. Enjoy your new dotless ebony board.

[Rick]

Man, that looks killer.

[Apophis]

Awesome, but I can swear I saw this before

[Dendroaspis]

Sorry man, I don't want to come off sounding condesending, but this is really NOT the way an actual luthier or pro tech would be doing this job at all. I could spend half an hour typing out all the things I see wrong and how it is actually done properly with totally different methods and materials like heat, sanding, rosewood dust, epoxies, etc. It's one thing to demonstrate how you're doing it, but when it comes to actually teaching other untrained people untested and unproven methods, the making of actual tutorials really should be done by actual professional luthiers or techs, IMO.
But never mind, do whatever you like to your axe. You'll see in a year or two. I just found it painfully obvious that no other techs or luthiers were inputing into this topic that I could see.
Carry on.....

[skinhead]

I don't know whot it looks in person, but I would do it with other method. Using rosewood dust + transparent epoxi. Mix them and filling there.

[djpharoah]

Looks good - but like Allen said, I have never seen it done like this before. Don't know how it will look say in a year or so.

[Shawn]

Professional or not, nice work and props for attempting it yourself. I know I wouldn't be able to do it.

[Drew]

Could you get some better pics of the finished board? I'm seeing what looks like a visible blob of dye starting around the 3rd fret and working its way up...

[ibznorange]

im with drew. you can see some streaking and different colored splotches.
when i first saw it (the original post), it looked a little funky. I havent ever seen results of one done this way, but i have seen results from epoxy filled ones (and unfretting fills) and they didnt look so... greasy. that board just looks greasy imo.
Its definately a cool idea though, and its cool that you put it up here as an option. its just good that someone came up and put in the word that if you get it done professionally its done alot differently. I really hope it works out though, cause it seems pretty simple this way. i guess well find out in the long run eh? worst case scenario you get it reboarded i guess.
Best of luck!

[ShawnFjellstad]

i think we need some pics of it outside in natural light.