Official Luthiers Forum!

I've done some inlays before, but now I'm working on one that raises some new questions I haven't encountered.

First, a significant chunk of my inlay goes "off the edge" of the fretboard. Really, it ends at the edge, but implies that the image would continue if there were more fretboard there to show it. What do you do with the side of the fretboard in those areas? Do you just let the edge of the inlay show? Or do you put some type of binding on? I really didn't leave enough room for binding, but I could file the inlay down to create some room if need be.

Second, several of my inlay segments almost completely consume the space on either side of several of the frets. So there's not a lot of wood for the fret tangs to bite into. I presume I'll need to carefully file and then re-cut the fret slot before super-gluing the fret into the slot, but what about the fret tangs? Do I file them off to avoid chips? Or do I just drive the tangs and let them bite into the inlay material?

Thanks for any advise. I'm pretty stoked about these inlays -- I've been spending evenings cutting the inlay material over the last couple weeks, they're coming very nicely!

Kelby, I am not as experienced as many here but for what it's worth.... I think that one usually uses binding at the edge where inlay comes all the way there. At this point you might just have to leave the inlay at the edges exposed (not the end of the world).

Where the inlay crosses frets you would simply recut the fret slot by hand (where you have inlayed) and then just file either side of the slot at a 45 degree angle. This allows the tangs to enter the slot (or be pulled out) without chipping or cracking the inlay or fretboard.

Let's see some pictures when you're done!

You could leave the inlay short of the edge if you want too. You could also frame the fretboard with some shell or lines back from the edge the thickness of binding and stop the inlay there too. You are going to have to use your creative sense here. You can also compress or file off the barbs where they pass shell and glue the frets in. The tuff part about the whole fret being covered is sanding the radius . Good luck with it. And get the Larry Robinson DVDs.