Electric Bass Guitar Build

[Julie Moriarty]

My suggestion would be to cut around the outside of the inlay with an X-acto or a graving tool, pick out the wood and use black epoxy to create a black border around the inlays.
Time consuming, but IMO it will make those inlays pop better against the fret board color.

So, enlarge the rout out creating a small margin around the abalone, then setting the shell in black epoxy, leaving a black epoxy border around it? Any advice on where to start finding, coloring then using epoxy? I'm a total newbie to this.

[Mike Sherman]

Correct. Certain inlay designs require a black witness lines to help offset the colors of shell and accent the overall design. An example would be white MOP next to gold MOP, it looks kind of washed out when used next to each other without a witness line. Having a black witness line helps with color separation. Stew-Mac and most hobby shops sell black epoxy. I prefer the slow-setting epoxy as it has a lower shrink rate. You can also add wood dust (or colored plastic dust)to epoxy for color matching.

[Chuck Raudonis]

I haven't tried it personally but I understand that India Ink mixed in with the epoxy works great. YMMV...test on scrap!

[Shawn Pixley]

I've used black dye or ebony dust in epoxy. Works great.

[Julie Moriarty]

Looks like I have some more experimenting to do. Thank you for the assistance. I just hope paralysis doesn't set in again. But I'm going to wait until the Micro Plunge arrives. It's already 10 days into the 3-4 week delivery time frame. I have plenty to do in the meantime...

[John Coloccia]

I'll just mention that unless it's really bad, you'd be surprised how much CA, or CA and dust, will hide. Do a test inlay in a piece of scrap, do a bad job, glue it in, and you'll get an idea of what you can get away with and what you can't.

[Julie Moriarty]

I'll just mention that unless it's really bad, you'd be surprised how much CA, or CA and dust, will hide. Do a test inlay in a piece of scrap, do a bad job, glue it in, and you'll get an idea of what you can get away with and what you can't.

I like high fudge factors. I'll give it a shot.

[John Coloccia]

Incidentally, save some old pill bottles, and get in the habit of saving some dust when you're sanding the fingerboard. I have several kicking around for guitars in process. It will come in handy for all sorts of things....minor chips if you need to yank a fret, for example. I also use it to fill in the ends of the fret slots. Sometimes I trim back the tangs, just like on a bound fingerboard, and then fill in with a little dust and a small drop of thin CA. On maple boards, I tend to use a lacquer stick instead.

Anyhow, I'm rambling now.

[Julie Moriarty]

A little over a week ago I wrote Micro Fence asking how the order is going on the Dremel plunge base. They got back to me a couple of days later and said they would be shipping early to mid this week. So far, no more news on shipping from them. I'm hanging my hat on this base being what I need to conquer my inability to see what I'm doing with the inlay routing. It's been a month since I ordered it and I'm getting antsy. I really want to finish this thing.

EDIT: 4 minutes after I posted this I got an email from Micro Fence saying the base was shipped Monday and should be here Friday. If this doesn't work for me, I'm done with intricate inlays.

[Julie Moriarty]

I've been to house selling hell and back! I had to gain some sense of normalcy so this evening I went into the shop determined to get the inlay work done, or at least moving forward.


Much of the earlier routing done by my SO was done with a 1/16" bit. That was too large for the points. Tonight I put in a 1/32" bit and positioned the LED lights on the Micro Fence plunge base in a way that provided me the best light with those battery operated lights. It was good but I still want to work on something better.

Anyway, I forged ahead, knowing I'd have to fix the boo-boos with some sawdust. That plunge base is awesome! If I started the inlay work with that base I believe I could get it perfect. All the cuts I made tonight were right on. I especially like being able to plunge down and lock the depth, then release it when done.

I stopped after the 12th fret. It was getting late.

There will be some filling required but I'm really happy knowing I'm going to get this done very soon.

[Mike Sherman]

Glad to see you getting back to the build. I did some inlay work myself this week...so I feel your pain!

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks for the encouragement, Mike. I finished the rest of the inlays last night and spent over an hour filling in the gaps with sawdust. I tried to get the filler to match the color of the grain. It was very time consuming. Once I dripped the CA on it, I realized the results will probably be mediocre at best. I was probably overly ambitious and definitely overconfident when I agreed to take this on. LOTS of lessons learned. But I'll walk away no longer afraid of doing inlay, though I still believe there's some magic involved. It looks so simple in the videos I've seen but it is anything but.