Ringed Round Dots

[joej]

I'd heard of this and seen a few picts of guitars that had this.

So, I thought I'd try it ... ringed, round dots.

This turned out much better than the "embed triangle beads" experiment on my last guitar neck.

Ignore the smudgy finger prints:

(more picts at http://personal.intrusion.org/pictures/ind...ir=./2004-10-04 )

Outer rings

I bought 1/4 inch hollow brass tubing from the hobby store (+ white styrene tubes, + aluminum tubes). Brass worked the best: aluminum was too soft, bendable and the white styrene didn't look visually well enough.

I used the dremel tool to cut out little rings from the brass tubing. It takes practice to cut straight across evenly ... and produce thin rings (approx. 1 - 2 mm tall rings)

So -- a dot of epoxy or superglue + a couple taps of my rubber mallet placed these into the fretboard holes. File these down so they are just a bit proud of the surface.

Inner dots

I cut a piece of brass tubing approximately 3 inches long and stuck it into the drill.

Spin that thing and hold it against a file to bevel the edge. Then, use a small/triangle file to notch that edge -- make some teeth for this new bit.

Now its just a matter of using this cutter to cut out pieces of veneer. I find Zebrawood to make the best dots on my brownish rosewood fretboard. Something highly figured and with high contrast, with the grain placed at an angle to the fretboard grain worked best for me.

Use your fretboard end cut-offs for testing first.

Since my drill bit was not a forstner, I filled the depression (inside the brass ring) with some wood putty, then dropped some epoxy or CA glue + then dropped the veneer on it. (let dry, layer some more epoxy or CA glue on top, let dry)

Then, just file the whole thing down flush to the fretboard surface.

NOTE -- if the brass ring is too tall, this filing will go THROUGH the veneer. Its easy to just pull out and replace, though.

Also, I assume my brass will tarnish over time. I dropped some CA glue on the veneer + rings for a little protection.

-- joe

[Dugz Ink]

I like that!

And I can use some of the rifle cartridges that are too worn out to reload.

Hmmm... what if I just used the heads of the casings for fret-dots? And dropped ebony dots in where the primers were? Oh man... now you've got my brain churning.

D~s