Block Inlays In Ebony Board, Some Extra Space

[wwwdotcomdotnet]

I just finished putting my pearl block inlays in an ebony fingerboard, however some of the inlays have a little extra room on the sides (the hole in the board is a little bigger than the inlay itself). How do you guys take care of that? I was thinking that I could make some dust with some left over fingerboard and mix it with Titebond and put it in the gaps, then radius the fingerboard? I know Stew Mac sells something for this, but is it really worth it? I plan on staining the board with ebony stain so it will be jet black.

[wwwdotcomdotnet]

This is the stuff I am talking about: Inlay Filler

[BNichols]

its really easy to fill with some fine dust and liquid superglue. just fill the entire hole with as much dust as you can and drip the glue over it without moving the dust. then you just sand off excess glue.

[wwwdotcomdotnet]

Really? It just seems to make more sense that you should mix the dust with the glue, but I will have to try that out. Thanks!

[WezV]

If doing it with titebond you would mix with the glue first - you wouldnt get time to do that with superglue and it soaks intow ood dust brilliantly anyway.

Only problem with superglue is that it will buff up to a shine as you polish the fretboard and look shinier than the surrounding wood. I use epoxy and dust as a filler because it doesnt do this.

You should be able to get it looking pretty invisible in ebony - its one of the most forgiving woods to use filler with

[wwwdotcomdotnet]

Wez, are you saying superglue soaks brilliantly or Titebond?

[WezV]

I am saying superglue soaks in brilliantly, assuming it is the normal or thin stuff rather than the really thick stuff.

superglue soaks very fast into wood - especially wood dust. it is good as a filler because you can just push the dust into the cavity and put superglue on top and it soaks all the way through making it very hard and ensuring a complete fill and a neat outline - but because it gets shiny when polished its best to only use this technique on areas that will be covered by lacquer.

If you put titebond on top of wood dust you would end up with a blob of titebond on some dust - it wouldnt really soak in much. You need to mix the titebond with wood dust to make a very thick paste that can be pushed into the cavities. Problem is it will shrink as it dries because the titebond will dry by loosing water.

I use epoxy and wood dust, again mixed to a thick paste, because it doesnt shrink as it dries and it doesnt get shiny like the CA (super)glue will.

[mattharris75]

Wez,

Just out of curiosity, what would a superglue and dust mix do underneath an oil (tru oil) finish? It seems there is some interaction between the oil and the wood, unlike lacquer, so I wasn't sure if this would look odd or not. I'd like to try to fill some tiny gaps between my headstock lam and the end of the fretboard and was thinking about trying this technique. The neck finish is going to be tru oil. Any idea how these interact?

[wwwdotcomdotnet]

these would work, correct?

Stew Mac Epoxy

[Southpa]

I've messed around with all kinds of epoxy, glue, sawdust, dye etc. combinations for filling in extra spaces and also making what I call "the poor man's inlay". I've had success with the superglue and wood dust method. A layer of dust with glue dropped in, as mentioned. Wait a few minutes and sand flush then repeat as needed to make it filled and level.

Mixing superglue w/ dust right off makes things "chunk out" very fast. Go ahead and try it and see if you can fill gaps. Pre mixing dust with any white/yellow wood glues will alter your tint and will not match the surrounding board. Epoxy and black dyes are commonly used and I think black epoxy is available. Do some searches on a most excellent inlayer and forum member named Clavin who pops in now and then to show his latest work. He mentions a few tips and tricks about what he does with certain "situations".

[Bainzy]

prostheta recently did a group buy on the UKGB forum for black epoxy, maybe you could give that a try:

http://www.simnettguitars.co.uk/bb/viewtop...594&start=0

I ordered a pair of tubes, I'll report back once I've had chance to use it as inlay filler.

[wwwdotcomdotnet]

thanks everyone! i ordered a tube set of the clear slow setting epoxy from stew mac. i figure i could use it for more applications rather than the black stuff. i have plenty of left over ebony to make the dust out of too, so i should be set

[WezV]

Wez,

Just out of curiosity, what would a superglue and dust mix do underneath an oil (tru oil) finish? It seems there is some interaction between the oil and the wood, unlike lacquer, so I wasn't sure if this would look odd or not. I'd like to try to fill some tiny gaps between my headstock lam and the end of the fretboard and was thinking about trying this technique. The neck finish is going to be tru oil. Any idea how these interact?

I havnt used tru-oil yet but whenever i have used superglue underneath an oil finish it has eventually started showing as shinier than the surrounding wood. I think you are correct - the oil wont soak into the CA'ed areas so these will probably have a different colour to the surrounding wood.

as always, test on scrap

The stew-mac epoxy should work absolutely fine for this, i used to use CA a lot but wouldnt switch back now i have tried it with epoxy - although be aware that the epoxy may look very grey when you sand it, once its finished it will look great

[wwwdotcomdotnet]

the stew mac clear epoxy worked like a charm! thanks for the advice everyone. the fingerboard is clamped to the neck now and drying overnight, so hopefully tomorrow i will have time to sand the radius in and check out how the filling came out. i am a little nervous of the binding in a few places though as it doesnt seem to be square against the fingerboard in a few places, but i suppose i could fill that with dust and epoxy too. im not really sure what happened, but it wasnt serious enough to scrap the whole fingerboard.

Edited June 7, 2007 by wwwdotcomdotnet