adding fret markers to a fretted neck

axisus

My squire bass is very good. When I bought it, it had those block stickers on it and it looked really cool. As I thought that stickers were a pretty naff thing to have (just my personal opinion), I took them off. The standard dots don't look so good.

Anyway, rolling forward, a guy on Facebook who fixes guitars for a living showed some before and after pix of adding block fret markers to a bass neck. It was a very good job, but he doesn't like to give away his techniques on stuff so he wouldn't elaborate on how he did them. I was just wondering if anyone here had done similar? It seems like something that would be tricky to do well.

octatonic

Fingerboard dots, or side dots?

For fingerboard dots you mark the centre with an X, for the 12th fret you divide the space in two and do two X's.

Then a drill bit that is the same width as the dots (which you can buy in) and you glue them in.

The trick bit is scraping down the dot so it follows the curve of the fingerboard without scraping the fingerboard.

Blocks I would do wither with a scalpel and chisel or (more likely) a dremel with very fine router bits- Stew Mac sell some that works great- carbide down cutters IIRC.

It is going to be much easier to do on a neck as you build it, as you can do the inlay before final radiusing.

axisus

Block inlays. I can't quite visualise how you would get everything nice and flat without accidentally compromising the straightness of the fretboard edges between frets. I'd rather not pull all the frets out!

octatonic

It would be tricky- personally I'd refret it at the same time.

WezV

It can be done a few ways, but its really hard to do as neatly as you can without the frets in the way, still possible though. The main issue is matching appropriate radii

A mini router base will span over a couple of frets quite nicely, but if you route to the depth of the inlay the base of the route will be curved. You either need to sand this radius into the back of the inlay or flatten the route. I would flatten the route.

Then you have the front face of the inlay. It either needs to be radiused before glueing in or after. With many inlays I have left it flat on the front and then used the frets as router rails with the depth set just above the fretboard surface. This allows you to trim the inlay back to the correct radius whilst in situ, but I have only done this with wood and recon stone, not pearl yet. It gets you close enough so you only need to sand and scrape a little.

With large pearl blocks I would be tempted to radius the surface first on a sanding block then spend time making sure they fit the route as flush as possible.

octatonic

WezV said:

With large pearl blocks I would be tempted to radius the surface first on a sanding block then spend time making sure they fit the route as flush as possible.

That is a very good idea.

axisus

Thanks good people. All food for thought. 

koneguitarist

http://neckillusions.com