Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm not sure where my brain went, but I put the side dots on the fingerboard binding in line with the fret rather than between the frets, and didn't notice the mistake until last night when I strung up the guitar for the first time and couldn't figure out why my fingers weren't finding the right frets.

Putting new ones in the correct spot and refinishing will be easy, but how do I cleanly hide the old side dots? The fingerboard binding is curly sapele and pretty thin (about 1/16" thick x 3/8" tall). Is there such a thing as a tiny plug cutter?

_________________
Kevin Mason
Mason Guitars and Ukuleles on Facebook
http://masonguitars.net

Kevin, I did a tutorial recently on making MOP side dots.... you may be able to do something similar with the sapele.

_________________
Dave
Milton, ON

You may want to subtly accent the old holes rather than hide them completely (which I think will be difficult) - but this might also mean you need to put one under EVERY fret....

_________________
The member formerly known as erikbojerik....

You could put the dot in the center where it belongs and add another under the next fret so it would look like groups of 3 at each position. You can tell everyone you wanted this, except the OLF will know but we can be persuaded to keep quiet as we have all made our own Boo Boo's

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Make the dots part of a design pattern? Like a short series of dots, that get smaller as they approach the middle of the fret.

-Matthew

I appreciate the vow of silence.

_________________
Kevin Mason
Mason Guitars and Ukuleles on Facebook
http://masonguitars.net

We must never break the Code.

_________________
http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Hi Kev!

Pull off the binding and redo it. It sounds scary, but i've seen your work and have the utmost confidence in your abilitys. Maybe make some little arrows pointing to where the dots should be?

Steve

I've never put them right under the frets, I just put the in between the WRONG FRETS!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, you can count on my silence

_________________
I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

Don't feel too bad Kevin, I just did a the dots wrong on my ebony fretboard; I put 1 at the third and 2 at the fifth instead of one at the fifth and 2 at the seventh I drilled out and plugged the ones I didn't want then put a new center dot in on the fifth fret. If it doesn't look ok I'll put a new fretboard on it.

If you can't think of a good pattern to save what you've already installed then I would try to plug the holes before I pulled the binding, you have nothing to lose but some time. You can make a small plug cutter out of some brass tubing like they sell in hobby stores. Just clean up the end and put some teeth in it with a needle file. After you cut the plug just push it out of the tube with the back end of a small drill bit. If the repair doesn't look good enough then maybe you can just pull the binding.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I saw a guitar that I think had the same thing happen. The builder added 2 dots into the pattern one matched the one he used then he set a colored dot in the center. He used red pencil lead from an artist supply. It did look nice. Kind of o 0 o simple and yet it made it look as though that was the intended design.
Some mistakes are opportunities for design change

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Drill out the white dots & replace them with black & put white dots in the correct positions.

Cheers Hip.