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I wanted some rosewood fingerboard side marker dots for the dread I'm finishing up. I was unable to find a source for small hardwood dowels or premade dot inlays, so I made this. I cut a small strip of EIR off of a thick head plate blank, whittled about 1/2" of the end pretty round, chucked it up in my drill press and went at it with various sandpaper strips and small files. Actually worked out OK, I think. It's darn close to 2mm in diameter from the blue tape to the tip, and very round. Does anybody know a source for pre-made wooden dots, or have a better process to make them than this? I'd love input.

Thanks, Chris.

Chris: If you want wood,I would say this is a fairly easy way to make dots.Enough here to do at least one guitar. LMI has black and white plastic side marker material,think it's about 1/16"or 3/32"diameter and about 6" long. I find it works quite well.
Tom

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I often use a dowel plate. The Lie-Nielsen dowel plate goes down to 1/8", but you can make your own to smaller sizes.

michael

Thanks guys,

I've used plenty of shell and plastic from LMI and stewmac, I was just wanting wood this time.

That is the same way I make my wood side dots. As with most things in lutherie, if you really want it, you have to do it yourself- either because it is not available on the market, or it is so extremely expensive, you can't afford it anyway.

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Pencil sharpener.
Drill hole, plug with glue.
Cut off.

Repeat for more dots.

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Last guitar, he really wanted maple dots on a rosewood fretboard. It may not matter, but I didn't want end grain. I was concerned it would be harder to keep clean while sanding and down the road while playing. I used drill bit counter sinks with the drill bit removed. I had a variety of sizes to choose from and got nice clean plugs. I also tried a cheap plug cutter. It was significantly inferior.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

I just posted my way of doing this in the mando forum recently! Works really well, is very fast, and you can use very small scraps to get the job done. Also it doesn't require using end grain as one of you had mentioned was a problem for you. Here's my trick:

Take a small piece (any shape) of scrap that is just slightly larger than the size of the dot you want. Now take a drill bit the size of the dot you want. With a dot of CA, glue the piece to the end of the drill bit opposite of the cutting end. Put the bit upside down in a drill press and get it spinning! Now you can take a file, or a sanding block of some sort to the edge of the spinning scrap piece. It'll come out to a perfect circle of the perfect size!

It was suggested that I do a pic tutorial, so maybe I'll get around to it sometime.

Thanks for the ideas everyone. Several I had not thought of.

Chris.

Don't get any easier than that.

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[quote="Chris Oliver"]Dots... made with a counter bore bit with the 1/8" drill bit removed... go figure!



Here is what Chris came up with when I was looking


BTW , A Darn fine looking stick it is too !!

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For the pencil sharpener method, I'd want to make a tapered hole with a dremel bit that matched that of the sharpener close enough. Just though I'd throw that out there.......

Anyone tried this?

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?cat=1,180,42240,53317&p=32280

Reams a hole that matches a dowel sharpened in a standard sharpener.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

maybe you could use rabbit pellets.

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Thanks again everybody.

Chris.

I use 1/8" brazing rod for a vintage look or use a paper punch on veneer strips.

Bob

Isn't one of the reasons for using plug cutters I'd to avoid "end grain" exposure? Seems making a stick would only leave end grain as an option. Yet, maybe for dense woods that is not much of an issue.

Mike

For sure the end grain issue is there. I ended up making another dowel, this one with Honduras Rosewood, which is much lighter red. Tests of the Honduras and the EIR showed the EIR dot looked almost black, where the Honduras ones looked pretty close to the right color. Worked out very well. I'll have some pics one of these days.

Hard to take a decent pic of this, but here's a pic of the Honduras Rosewood postion markers. Under finish they look just the slightest bit more red than the EIR purfling on the maple binding, but I like the look quite a bit. Under finish you can see the end grain color variations in the rosewood dots.

Chris.