Part 4: Fretboard Inlays

I was going to skip my Chinese number inlays, it seemed like a LOT of work and hassle on a neck that I may well bugger up if the LED thing fails. Having said that, I kind of knew that I had to attempt it once I had thought about it. Anything else would seem a bit of a cop out. I could imagine myself looking down at the finished guitar and just thinking 'if only I'd done the inlays!'. So, I've started ....

I did the artwork using Adobe illustrator software, and printed it onto waterslide decal paper. This was them transferred onto Celluloid sheet (couldn't afford MoP).

I knocked up a rough platform to use with a jewellers saw, but I didn't really get on with the saw so I had to come up with a plan B. I made a board to fit onto the dremel base with a hole sticking out for a cutter bit. I then inverted it and clamped it with my workbench so that the tool bit was sticking up a few millimetres. This allowed me to cut around the shapes carefully. I had to be extra careful with my fingers so close to a sharp cutty thing that could cause major damage to flesh!

After the dremel, I used small files to clean up the shapes. Overall pleased with the results.

A tiny hand vice came in handy for holding small bits.

With quite a lot of them done I thought I'd better work out how to get them into the fretboard.

My initial idea was to paint around the actual inlay with fairly 'dry' paint. The finish ended up a bit 'wooly' and innacurate

This mean that it was somewhat 'overcut' for my liking by the time I attacked it with the dremel

I came up with a Plan B, which was to paint the fretboard (well, a practice offcut) all white, let it dry then scratch around the sides of the inlay with a scalpel. This was a much more accurate approach, and the subsequent cut/fitting was a lot better. Still pretty tricky to do. Useful tip: I wear reading glasses these days, strength of 2.0. I also have a pair at 4.0 strength which allows you to get closer to stuff for viewing (all bought from the pound shop!). When I want to get REALLY close and accurate I put both pairs on at the same time. Then you can get a super-close view of what you are doing.

Well, that's it for now. A few more inlays to cut out then I will be tackling putting them into the fretboard.