# So I died my fretboard and it went horribly wrong



## abadonae (May 2, 2013)

Hi guys,

Basically I have an RG8 lefty, i'd seen a load of guys dying the rosewood fretboards on them darker/black with a variety of products and decided to give it a try! 

I used fiebings black leather dye from stewmac and it did an absolutely fantastic job on the fretboard! however the frogtape i used peeled away and the dye dribbled down and doused the maple and walnut bare neck as well meaning that a huge section of it looked like toddler paint school.

So I had a small breakdown and in my infinite wisdom decided to use the fiebings to dye the whole back of the neck instead, now it looks dull. It's sticky and i think i've made a terrible mistake 

What can i do? Another user suggested i use pencil erasers and elbow grease but i'd quite like to see if i can make it work as with the black body it does look pretty good??

Cheers guys


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## Berserker (May 2, 2013)

Did you sand the clear coat off the neck first? If not it shouldn't have sunk in too much and you could sand it down and start again.


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## tedtan (May 2, 2013)

I actually think it would look cool on a black guitar, even if it is flat instead of gloss. Do you have pics?


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## ikarus (May 2, 2013)




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## Vicious7 (May 3, 2013)

Show us some pics yo. Maybe you can sand/polish it with some stain till you've a nice satin painted neck? Maybe, I don't know... ;-;


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## MF_Kitten (May 3, 2013)

Was the neck sanded back first? If not, then it's not stained. The satin finish would be in the way. Also, you can always sand down the stain with fine sandpaper when it dries. If not get out something you can scrape it off with. It's just a bit of goo on a neck, dude. Chill out


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## abadonae (May 3, 2013)

The neck was in fact not sanded first...but the dye has appeared to take to the wood despite there being a clearcoat on it?

I'm confused but here's some pics so far of the mess



















The last image is a close up of how the neck actually looks in places, so you can see my predicament, what i really want to do is get it back to how it was, the fretboard has come out looking fantastic though


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## KGINDI7 (May 3, 2013)

Looks like stain went through the clear coat, don't know how, and is soaked in wood grains. If its so, only thing you can do is to lightly sand thru the clear, start from headstock side or heel side, and see if you can take the dye off. If not, I would sand the neck, see if maple is coming out without sanding more than half mm. If not, stain black neck back except headstock, and use tru oil to finish it. Its much better than ruining a good working neck by sanding. Also, neck feel matters faaaaar more than how it looks. Though it still look cool to me.


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## abadonae (May 3, 2013)

I think it will look cool if i can get it right, it literally is a matter of getting it to feel right again


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## KGINDI7 (May 3, 2013)

If feeling is your priority, you shouldn't really worry. Applying tru oil is really easy and take less time than many other finished. It also feels great on the neck and seals it too.


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## Rook (May 3, 2013)

That looks great, wait til it's dry, lightly sand it back and recoat IMO.

May as well make the best of it.


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## tedtan (May 3, 2013)

I think this can work out with a bit of tweaking.


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## abadonae (May 3, 2013)

Right so i took advice and sanded back the excess layers i had unwittingly added on and this is the resulting mess left over





Not as bad as i thought it would be and i still need to do some sanding, what i'm worried about now though is sanding to much and going through the clearcoat or changing the profile of the neck/heel/volute...get my meaning?


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## Berserker (May 3, 2013)

You need to go through the clear coat if you want to stain it.


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## abadonae (May 3, 2013)

Berserker said:


> You need to go through the clear coat if you want to stain it.



Yea i'm fully aware of that dude  the worry was that originally it looked as if it had already penetrated the clearcoat somehow, if i can get it back to just maple and walnut then i'll be happy until i can pluck up enough courage to attempt this again haha


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## Konfyouzd (May 3, 2013)

Going through the clear shouldn't be too big a deal. Also... What grade sandpaper are you using? Sorry if you've already said it. But I think you shouldn't be in trouble of changing the neck profile too drastically until you get down to like 60 - 80 grit... You *may* want to apply some tung oil if you end up going through the finish, though.


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## abadonae (May 3, 2013)

I'm only using 600 and 1200 for the final shine on it. Nothing major and yea it'll require some serious elbow but worth it to not f**k the neck up lol


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## KGINDI7 (May 3, 2013)

Take two 1200 grit papers, rub their sanding surfaces and hurray, an almost 2400 grit sandpaper. Just do not rub them too much. 5-6 medium rubs are fine and good to go.


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## abadonae (May 3, 2013)

Well i've done what i can for today! I've managed to salvage the neck and reckon i can get it back even more with a bit of extra work, i've clipped the cable leading from the tone pot to the volume pot and taped them both. Apparently this improves the tone which after hearing a Demo i do agree with 

But these are the pics i have so far, i used the 1200 grit sandpaper on the fretboard thinking it would give the frets some lovely mirror-like shine but all it did was dull the fret i did it on and scratch it  BUGGER!!


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## ECGuitars (May 3, 2013)

abadonae said:


> Well i've done what i can for today! I've managed to salvage the neck and reckon i can get it back even more with a bit of extra work, i've clipped the cable leading from the tone pot to the volume pot and taped them both. Apparently this improves the tone which after hearing a Demo i do agree with
> 
> But these are the pics i have so far, i used the 1200 grit sandpaper on the fretboard thinking it would give the frets some lovely mirror-like shine but all it did was dull the fret i did it on and scratch it  BUGGER!!



Awww dude never sand across the grain, always sand in the direction of the grain. Those marks in the fretboard are going to be extremely difficult to get out now.


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## mphsc (May 3, 2013)

at least you didn't do that to an RG2228.


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## tedtan (May 3, 2013)

You definitely want to sand with the grain, but 1200 grit is pretty fine, so you can get those scratches out.

For the rest of the fingerboard, I personally would go with 0000 steel wool rather than sand paper.


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## sage (May 3, 2013)

For the love of all things holy, tape your fretboard before you polish frets. And use 0000 steel wool for that action.


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## Cabinet (May 3, 2013)

sage said:


> For the love of all things holy, tape your fretboard before you polish frets. And use 0000 steel wool for that action.



Yes, I agree. Always tape and be sure it doesn't wrap around the neck because it could pull off the finish depending on what finish it has.

When I have scratches in my finger boards I take a razor blade and pull it perpendicular with the grain. But I do that prior to taping and fret dressing.


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## Gregori (May 3, 2013)

Dude, you really should look this stuff up before you start doing things to your guitar. Most every video about polishing frets on youtube will tell you to mask the fretboard first. And you probably could have gotten most of that stain off using some naptha. 

My advice is to stop learning the hard way and browse google and youtube for each step.


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## muffinbutton (May 3, 2013)

Gregori said:


> Dude, you really should look this stuff up before you start doing things to your guitar. Most every video about polishing frets on youtube will tell you to mask the fretboard first. And you probably could have gotten most of that stain off using some naptha.
> 
> My advice is to stop learning the hard way and browse google and youtube *BEFOREHAND* for each step.



Fixed.

Or just ask on here first. If you look through my build thread I ask tons of questions before I do something.


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## abadonae (May 4, 2013)

Hi guys,

Right first of all I haven't actually done the frets yet and yes i obviously would've taped off the frets before hand, that's a given and something I have done countless times before.

Second I attempted to use a variety of things to get the stain off the back of the neck but nothing appeared to work despite a) elbow grease and b) patience so sandpaper it was and at 600 grit I haven't even touched the clearcoat yet and will be using 1200grit to get the remaining shite off.

Thirdly it was my bad rubbing across the grain, i was so totally immersed in getting the neck done that I just didn't think and now have a serious job ahead trying to get that to come out all nice 

Fourth I did buy some 0000 wire wool, you can see it in the yellow packet in the top of one of my pictures and I fully intent to use it on the remainder of my frets to make them SHINE, i used 800-1200 grit paper on an ebony board of a custom and it made the damn thing a mirror so i attempted that here and sadly it did not work out.


I appreciate the help and advice that has been given but often citing what i should've done after the fact is more a hindrance than a help...


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## muffinbutton (May 5, 2013)

My opinion, take the clearcoat off and stain the neck black again. It looks awesome in the other pictures. Might do it to my douglas once I have some money.


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## Nile (May 5, 2013)

It will more than likely always have that tint to it since seeping through. It did look pretty cool all black though.


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## Cyanide Assassin (May 6, 2013)

Besides the 0000 steel wool, it does polish the frets beautifully but for the love of god, get one of those crappy little magnets business's give out to catch all the tiny filings that come off of the wool. Otherwise you will have a very fine scratch the fuck out of my brand new coffee table bit of black "dust" covering everything.


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## gigawhat (May 7, 2013)

abadonae said:


> I appreciate the help and advice that has been given *but often citing what i should've done after the fact is more a hindrance than a help...*



Where I come from when you fuck something up, and you show people, who then tell you how and why you fucked it up, and then tell you how to unfuck it, it isn't a bad thing. It's called learning from your mistakes. Maybe thats just me though...


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## GazPots (May 11, 2013)

Helpful tip concerning all the masking frets off talk. Instead of using masking tape and getting in a mess or just dying of boredom putting it on and taking it off, just get a fingerboard guard and some steel wool. Job done. Just remember to put some newspaper or such under the neck as it will collect the metal filings. Also check it's the right thickness for the fret first. 

Screw wasting time. 








Used them for years and they rock.


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## tedtan (May 11, 2013)

While we're on the subject of steel wool, make sure to cover your pickups with a towel or similar, or you'll end up with fuzzy pole pieces. If you do get these pieces of steel on your pickups, you can get them off with a magnet (I use a magnetized screw driver), but this wastes a few minutes I'd rather spend on something else.


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## nothingleft09 (May 11, 2013)

gigawhat said:


> Where I come from when you fuck something up, and you show people, who then tell you how and why you fucked it up, and then tell you how to unfuck it, it isn't a bad thing. It's called learning from your mistakes. Maybe thats just me though...


 

There is a difference in how it's done though. Some people are nice about it (The way to do it so people actually wanna hang around this forum) and some people are dicks about it. If you're trying to help, then be helpful instead of making someone feel like an idiot for making a mistake most everyone has made at one time or another and being bashed for making a mistake doesn't help someone learn any better and instead just makes them more wary of wanting to work on their own stuff and learn for fear of fucking it up. 

Also OP for future reference, when you tape the neck to dye it run a light coat of petroleum jelly on the tape. the dye will either run off or won't get past it.


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## Gregori (May 11, 2013)

nothingleft09 said:


> There is a difference in how it's done though. Some people are nice about it (The way to do it so people actually wanna hang around this forum) and some people are dicks about it. If you're trying to help, then be helpful instead of making someone feel like an idiot for making a mistake most everyone has made at one time or another and being bashed for making a mistake doesn't help someone learn any better and instead just makes them more wary of wanting to work on their own stuff and learn for fear of fucking it up.
> 
> Also OP for future reference, when you tape the neck to dye it run a light coat of petroleum jelly on the tape. the dye will either run off or won't get past it.


I didn't realize I was being a dick, I was trying to be helpful. I think part of that was giving him examples of why he should look stuff up before he tries to fix something.


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## nothingleft09 (May 11, 2013)

Gregori said:


> I didn't realize I was being a dick, I was trying to be helpful. I think part of that was giving him examples of why he should look stuff up before he tries to fix something.


 
I just meant in general. Some people were like WTF??? Get what I mean? I wasn't directing at anyone specifically. But it's true. Before doing something possibly detrimental to the instrument it's always a good idea to ask or look things up. But still, just because he didn't is no reason for anyone to flame the guy ever how lightly they may think it seems, this is written so sarcasm and playful giving of shit can come off completely wrong. lol


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