Inlay Filler Colour For Rosewood

[guitar2005]

So for ebony inlays, it makes sense to use ebony dust to mix with Epoxy to fill the inlay gaps and set them in. Black on black will not show around the inlay gaps.

I wonder though, for rosewood (Cocobolo), the black will show around the inlays. Has anyone tried rosewood dust. The Inlay Techniques book doesn't mention anything else tham ebony dust.

Is there a reason why only ebony dust in mentioned?

[Southpa]

Ebony has a fairly uniform "black" look overall so its easy to make any repairs etc. look uniform. If your rosewood's grain is uniform then it might look ok, but I have seen lots of rosewood that has lighter grain streaks which cannot be duplicated as easily using this method. Most woods lighter in color than ebony will contrast darker than the parent material when wet or when mixed with glues.

All I can suggest is to try it out on scrap and see if it matches. use dust from the source wood, ie. rosewood fb and mix with the epoxy in varying amounts or you could drop fill CA glue and then spread rosewood dust over top, pack it in a bit, let it set then sand level.

Edited December 28, 2006 by Southpa

[johnsilver]

You might try a search in this part of the forum. I've seen it mentioned by some here that rosewood dust will show up darker than the surrounding fretboard, so they mix rosewood dust with maple dust to lighten it a bit.

+1 with Southpa on testing on scrap.

[pmarlin]

I ordered the brown for rosewood inlay filler color and epoxy from stew mac and should be here saturday so I will try it out and see.

[jmrentis]

Pmarlin, I know this is an older thread, but I searched this site after finding the stewmac rosewood filler and was curious how it worked out for you or anyone else that has tried it. I plan on doing a lot of practice and my inlays will not be too difficult. However, if this works I would like to have it as a backup for my cocobolo board. I have a little bit of extra cocobolo from the fretboard that I might test using cocobolo shavings with CA to see how it turns out, but I would like to know how this stuff worked for you. Thanks. J

[MP63]

You can't get any bettre than the dust from the piece of wood you are inlaying. Just sand up some dust real quick.

I am starting to like Crazy Glue dropped onto the dust while it's in the gap.

[pmarlin]