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Bought the plug cutter today. I'm gonna give this a go. I'll try it on a cheap piece of wood a couple of times just to see how well I can do this. If all goes well, I'll proceed. If not, I'll leave it. I may only replace the 10th fret dot anyway. I'm the one who'll be playing it in the end, and that will agravate the tar out of me. The others, while off center, won't be that big a deal, for me at least. It's a cosmetic issue, not a structural one, and I may just learn to live with those.
Any advice on removing the 10th fret dot? I'm thinking of finding the center and taking a brad point bit slightly smaller than the dot size, putting the brad poiint on the center mark and tapping it wiith a hammer to leave a sort of centerpunch like guide for the bit to follow. I'm hoping the bit will grab the dot and kinda of twist it out for me.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I like Rich Schnee's idea of removing a rectangular section following the grain between frets 9 and 10, done nicely it will almost surely be less glaring than a plug, although a plug may be just fine. Another option for the off center ones is to re-do them with blocks or some other motif that will completely cover the old dots.

You are not the only one to be doing this by a long shot!

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Just did the same thing on my new 12 string. Not funny part is I did the opposite on the last mandolin I built...put the marker on 9 instead of 10.
I'm leaving it on the 12 string though. Here's the deal. Larson's made a LOT of guitars with the marker at 10.
Apparently a European thing back then.
Got to remember 10th on mandolins, 9th on guitars...

Thanks for all the tips. There were a lot of really smart ideas, and I will store them away for future use. I plugged the 10th fret marker hole and put the marker at the 9th where it's supposed to be. Also removed the 19th fret marker and plugged that. I think everything else will look fine. They were to my eye the most glaring problems. it went well. When the glue dries and I cut/file/sand and replace the 19th fret marker, I think you would have to look awful hard to see the repair. We shall see. I will try to post pics in the next couple of days when all is done, but my camera's cheap, so I don't know if you'll be able to tell anything from that. What i was really worried about was the side dot marker, which I also had to move. I drilled it out and filled with a sliver of rosewood I cut to fit the hole. You can't even tell it was there. Again, I much appreciate all of your help on this.Thank you.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I sort of like 10th fret markers

http://www.timewarpmusic.com/INVENTORY/ACOUSTICS/STELLA.html

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

Amen. But unfortunately, there are proably always going to be "learning opportunities" to deal with.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I am a fan of the artistic repair. Make a slight, off center tweak to each marker and fill it with matching material to the dots...kind of like making them into teardrops or something. The idea for cutting out and moving the 9th marker is grand!

-Matthew

Use Rich's suggestion. A rectangular inlay well fitted will not show up. A round plug will,as it goes across the grain in places.

You could consider completely removing the wood between the fret slots and replacing it with a complete replacement IF you have a piece of leftover wood that matches the grain and coloration in that area. If you are binding the fingerboard,the repair will be invisible. Otherwise,with Rich's suggestion,you need only find a small matching piece of wood. Use dark glue,of course,and fit the patch very tight. Taper it and clamp it in dry at first,to make sure it fits,then,glue it. Don't make it so tight you cannot get it back out for gluing!

Ok here's one that got plugged. Ebony is probably the easiest to do this with. Its a prototype and not for sale, of course, so I decided I would move on rather than spend too much more time on it. Don't ask me what I was thinking when I put em there. Probably same as most, a bit distracted and trying to hurry. I think after the fretboard is buffed and waxed they will be hard to see under the strings.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I think I see one at the third and two at the fifth?

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

Yep. Don't know what I was thinking but couldn't leave it like that.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I've seen on some guitars someone used a plug in ebony that the epoxy/ebony dust fill gets buffed shiny after a few years of play, so it showed up pretty readily. The rectangular plug worked well in rosewood on my kids' size 5 Terz keeper.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I can see where that could happen. These are plugs from offcuts of the fretboard so I expect they'll look pretty much the same down the road. This guitar has so many things on it that I would rather do differently that it just doesn't matter. I do think a rectangular patch between the frets be a better fix.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"