Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi guys,
I've seen several Fretboard inlay marker sets at Grizzly, Stew Mac...ect.
Thickness of the shell is .060,
If the fretboard is radiused at 16" and I use a routing base with a micro die grinder
(the one John sells) then the area routed out to accept the marker will be .060 deep and
also be radiused at 16", the marker is flat but there is now a 16' radius cutout.
The marker has considerable width compared to a dot marker,
How do I install the fret marker ??
Do I bend the marker to the radius ??
Will these markers bend ??

Gregg

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Gregg

I would say inlay them less deep than .060'', and sand them flush with the radius after.

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

I try to get them very close to flush at the centerline of the FB and then sand flush. With a 16" radius board, you're not sanding away that much at the edges, but some inlays can change appearance dramatically when you sand too much away so be careful.

Good luck,
Chuck

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"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong"
- Joseph Chilton Pearce

I understand what your both saying, however the routed out area will have a 16" radius because the router base rest on the 16" radius fret board during routing, right?
So,
How do I deal with a flat inlay going into a radiused area ??
Am I not understanding correctly ??

Gregg

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Gregg

The small radius on the bottom of the route is not that big of a deal. Either CA or Epoxy will fill the small gap at the bottom due to the radius. In any case the glue joint your making for the inlay is not strutural it just need to stay in.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Shell will not bend, it will break. This is how shell purflings are installed though, and why abalone is preferred for that... the cracks don't show because they look similar to the natural pattern of the shell.

Here are a few options for installing shell inlays in a radiused fingerboard.

1. Rout before radius. You could either radius the board with the pocket empty, or glue the shell in so its gets radiused along with the board... be very careful of dust if you do this.
You'll have to be just as careful when leveling the shell if you glue it after radiusing the board, but you have less to worry about at the same time then, plus you can use a scraper for most of it, which won't fluff up so much dust.

2. Rout after radius, but try to hold the router level while you work, so it's registering off the highest point of the radius the whole time, rather than "picking up" the radius of the board.

3. If you are doing multi-piece inlays, you can do each piece like style 2, and choose your "router plane" to be perpendicular to the radiused surface at the center of the piece. That is, minimize sanding depth into each piece. This is good if you have a tight radius like 12" and thin materials.

4. Do what you did and use epoxy or CA to fill the gaps under it whilst you glue it in. Also could scrape a radius into the bottom side of the shell to reduce gap size, but be careful not to make the center thinner than your pocket depth.

I use .060" thick but route before radiusing the neck. Split blocks or the like could be intalled "canted", but if it is a wide 1 pc. inlay, I'd just "shim" the outside regions of the pocket (so it doesn't rock) with bits of toothpic. Maybe even CA the shims where you want them once finalized, so they don't move when you go ahead & bed the inlay with epoxy.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Just inlay flush to the high spot and sand down . Don't worry about the radius on the bottom of the slot . CA , epoxy or wood glue will work . My preference is for CA . Here is a link to the inlay video that may help . http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... inlay&aq=f this may help some .

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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

Thanks Guys !!

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Gregg

Another way to eliminate the "radiused bottom" of the route is to set up your router base with an extension base, which you could do with double sided carpet tape and a true flat piece of stock,(wood, plexi, etc..).

Then either run two boards of the same thickness along both side of the fretboard, provided it is not glued up to the neck, or attach two feet to the extended ends of the router base extension plate.

I sometimes use a similar set up when inlaying bridges. (Guitar bridges )

I'm at 518.483.2339 if you wish to call for a better explanation.
Regards,
Paul

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Paul Bordeaux
http://www.bordeauxinlay.com

Hmmm......very interesting Paul.

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Gregg