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Has anyone cut their own dots .125 to .250 possibly with a modified plug cutter? I want to cut some figured plastic and wood

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Mike McNerney

Chris has a tool if you want to go that route - https://elevatelutherie.com/product/dot-driller/

I have the smallest one I use it for ukes.


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I have done it with a standard plug cutter. It was a bit of a fiddle because the cut edges were not perfectly smooth and needed sanding, which then altered the diameter a little and affected the fit, requiring some filling - but in an ebony board it all ended up looking fine. I was cutting soft and figured wood, which probably contributed to the issues. Your experience might be different, especially with a hardwood. With something really soft like spalted timber I would flood it with CA to firm it up before cutting plugs from it. As usual, that tool from Chris looks really good. If you are planning to do this more than once I think it would be a good investment. We all need more shiny customized tools and jigs.

Just did some last week, 6mm snakewood for an ebony fretboard. Use a quality plug cutter, mine is a Veritas. Required light taps with a small hammer to get them in, glued with Titebond. Hardwoods or other hard materials work better that softwoods.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I've used the four flute Fuller type countersinks with the drill bit reversed and pulled up above the flutes to cut dots out of Corian, plastics, wood, and ivory piano keys for position markers. One way to avoid the hassle of picking the dots out of the counter sink is to mill them into a thicker piece of material, and then either "pop" them off, or saw or sand through the back of the material to release the dots.

Repair shops tend to have to replace odd-sized dots on a relatively frequent basis (e.g., fretboard leveling or re-radiusing, or shrunken/lost markers). If you just need a few dots of a particular size, or find the material is too fragile to use a plug cutter (always back burls and spalted material with 1/16" ply, then CA saturate), this approach might work.

We kept a bunch of sizes of drill rod (3/32", 1/8", 3/16", 1/4", 2,3,4,5,6,7 mm) around so that a blank could be medium CA'd to the milled-flat end of a length of drill rod, spun against the face of a disk sander using a zero-clearance insert, then either popped off with a razor blade (if a bit of a bevel was touched into the rod) or for less heat-sensitive materials, quick application the the drill rod about 1" from the end with the dot.

I got to the point where I would glue the dot in whilst still attached to the drill rod, then either heat or use a hammer to shear the CA joint between dot and rod. The drill rod will eventually get scratched up enough to be a bit undersized... so just cut or grind back the rod to a section with full diameter. You can also use home store steel rod, but be aware that even the galvanized material will likely be a bit undersized, while drill rod will be the stated diameter +0/-0.0005-0.001" based on the material we had in-house.

In a pinch, the shanks of old drill bits can be used as mandrels, assuming the diameter is close enough to what you need.

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We have become a civilization that elevates idiots, prostitutes, and clowns. Am I still to defend it? Yes, for its principles. Yes, for what it was. Yes, for what it still may be.

-Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel)

You can use a very slightly larger drill bit to resize the odd sized cavity and then use the drill bit as the mandrel to make a close fitting dot, or resize the cavity for the dots you have on hand.
Something I forgot to mention about using counter sinks - if you buy a set you can make dots of various sizes:
https://www.harborfreight.com/carbon-st ... 61635.html

I reduce the OD on my 1/4" LV plug cutter and it worked fine. I will try the same on my 1/8 countersink/pilot thingy but I think I need a 3/32 dot for the sides. the elevate tool looks great, maybe...

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Mike McNerney

I use Diamond hole saws from ebay

Another option is thermosetting polymer clay. The easiest way to form side and fretboard dot markers with clay is drill a series of holes in a 1/16" thick piece of scrap angle/bar/channel stock aluminum (ream to final size on 1/8" and larger), fill with clay, and pull out the Easy-Bake. Thirty minutes or so at 230 deg F cures the dots, which can then be popped out and used as-is.

Lots of colors and levels of transparency available from your local craft store with 3-4 brands... we made repro clay and black dots using the stock colors from Staedtler's FIMO line ('Sahara' for new and 'Caramel' for the sort of aging you'd see on a '62 Fender).

We had a hard time matching current red plastic rod stock offerings to an early 1960's Gretsch Country Gentleman rebind, so used a red clay, set just beneath the surface of the binding, and filled with CA. After filing level, the dots were a near-perfect match.

We had a Breville toaster/convection/air fryer oven in the shop which got used for drying shell casings, curing Cerakote, and the occasional sandwich... it worked perfectly for the clay dots.

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We have become a civilization that elevates idiots, prostitutes, and clowns. Am I still to defend it? Yes, for its principles. Yes, for what it was. Yes, for what it still may be.

-Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel)