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Inlay In Rosewood


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Hi all,

After hours and hours of cutting and routing and fitting (and a 4-month hiatus) I'm finally ready to glue and level my vine inlay. I practiced and took my time routing and was able to minimize the gaps for the most part. B)

Just in case, though, I did a gap filling experiment (on scrap) with rosewood dust and CA... it really doesn't look any better than using the CA alone. The dust turns much darker than the surrounding rosewood (most of you probably already knew this, but this stuff is all new to me :D ).

This just confirms what Craig Lavin and Larry Robinson say - if it's rosewood keep your routing tight 'cause there's no good way to fill big gaps and have it look nice. :D

Mike

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On my first build, I had a small gap in about a 1"portion of the joint between the Rosewood fretboard and the Maple neck. I mixed some of the Rosewood dust and just regular Titebond glue to make a "filler paste", and I was very pleased with the results of that. After applying the glue, letting it cure for several days, and sanding, you can't tell that small little gap was ever there.

You might want to try some experimenting on scrap wood and see if that would work for you. The only inlaying I have done so far is simple 1/4" Abalone dots and I used a Forstner bit to drill those holes and there was no gap at all, so I am not one to give reliable advice of inlay methods. :D

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Try "cutting" the rosewood dust with fine maple dust. This will result in a lighter filler once mixed with glue. I mix a 70% rosewood to 30% maple ratio, that's ideal for average colored rosewood and even koa.

Good luck.

Ron

I've thought about that before, but kinda thought, nooo.. that won't work.. so I never tried to mix different colored wood to get a closer match. Thanks for the tip bro, I'll definitely give it a try next time.

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