What's The Best Way To Do Gibson Trapezoid Inlay

[Claptonfreak]

This is my first gibson style guitar. I normally do strats and the dot inlay's are easy, but now I'm doing an SG. I'm ordering the precut MOP inlays, they're 7mm thick I believe, and I have a flat template to clamp to the fretboard. The problem is' it's pre-radiused. So first, should I use some sort of dremel attachment to take advantage of the template, and then how do I make sure it's uniform depth with the radiusing?

[SwedishLuthier]

You need a Dremel router attachment. Then you need templet folower bits for your dremel. Thirdly you doublestick the fretboard to a MDF board or similar, stick two carefully thicknessed pieces of wood, roughly the same thickness as the fretboard or slightly thicker, at the sides of the fretboard. Now you have something to stick the template to and then the dremel will sit on top of the template. Rout carefuly exactly .07" deep at the top of the arc on the fretboard. Then you will have to find a way of leveling the inlays without destroying the radius.

I always inlay first, then radius.

[Claptonfreak]

You need a Dremel router attachment. Then you need templet folower bits for your dremel. Thirdly you doublestick the fretboard to a MDF board or similar, stick two carefully thicknessed pieces of wood, roughly the same thickness as the fretboard or slightly thicker, at the sides of the fretboard. Now you have something to stick the template to and then the dremel will sit on top of the template. tour careful and only exactly .07" ath the top of the arc on the fretboard. Then you will have to find a way of leveling the inlays without destroying the radius.

I always inlay first, then radius.

Thanks for the help.

I would have Inlayed first, except I ordered a pre-slotted and pre-radiused fretboard for this guitar.

[Bryan316]

I'm in the same boat, here. Carvin neck, ebony board already fretted.

I'm debating how to make a rig. My idea, is to clamp the neck to my table perfectly level, and weld up a plate of steel at a slight downward angle, to put inlays on the top edge of the fretboard. Thinking like Billy Sheehan's custom basses with the long dots that protrude to the edge of the fretboard. So I don't want my template exactly level to the board, but parallel with the board close to the edge. Maybe a 2 to 3-degree tilt overall.

[RFR]

This is my first gibson style guitar. I normally do strats and the dot inlay's are easy, but now I'm doing an SG. I'm ordering the precut MOP inlays, they're 7mm thick I believe, and I have a flat template to clamp to the fretboard. The problem is' it's pre-radiused. So first, should I use some sort of dremel attachment to take advantage of the template, and then how do I make sure it's uniform depth with the radiusing?

First off, since you are using MOP rather than a plastic inlay material, you have no flex in the inlay.

If it was mother of toilet seat you could follow the radius and have the bottom match.

Here I would say, just route a flat bottom to the depth of the inlay at the highest point in the radius. The ends of the MOP will be higher, and you just file/sand them to match the radius.

Hope it makes sense I typed this response in a hurry

Roman

Edited June 24, 2008 by RFR