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I just experimented with using hot hide glue and sanding dust as a filler around inlays (instead of epoxy), and it came out great! This was in rosewood, not ebony.

Method I followed:

Make some fine sanding dust from the same species of wood as the workpiece.
Make some hot hide glue.
Add urea to the hot hide glue to lengthen open time.
Mix a bottle cap of sanding dust with a few drops of hide glue.
Get it to the consistency of brownie mix; mix it well.
Put some in the cavity, move it around with a toothpick.
Put the inlay in the cavity, press down. Encourage squeeze out.
Pile on some left over paste, to allow for shrinking.

Any others using hot hide glue and sanding dust for this particular job?

Hey Don this is a good use for the awful Titebond bottled hide glue too. The stuff makes decent filler when mixed with dust....

I remain a fan of traditional HHG for any gluing though.

Hesh--

Finally, a use for Franklin liquid hide glue in guitar building!

I actually don't own a bottle of the stuff, so the home-mixed version will have to do for me. Besides, I like working with fresh. Good idea for somebody who already owns a bottle, though. Better than letting it spoil.

Exactly!

I haven't tried hide glue and sanding dust as inlay filler so I'm curious - how well does the color of the dust/glue match the wood? I use CA on inlays but the bad thing there is that I have to use sanding dust from a lighter colored wood so I can get an ok color match.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Have seen luthiers putting together CL gtr rosettes ,and using HHG/sawdust to fill the tiny voids e.g. stephen faulk has an excellent video on making your own CL gtr rosette

Steve--

I'll try to post a photo later. Mine was an excellent match. I think the darker woods are easier to deal with in this regard. When it was wet, my "brownie mix" was pretty dark, but everything looks darker when wet.

Here is a photo:



A cool fact: The hole in the head of the P is 100% filler. I just routed out the whole profile, put filler in the pocket, pushed the pearl down into the filler, and let it ooze up into the hole and around the outside edge. I smeared some on top, spread it around, and let it sit. Once it was fully dry, I sanded back with a hardwood block and PSA sandpaper, 80 to 120 to 220.

This is my new favorite material for filling in around inlays.

I can't click on the photo to make it bigger for some reason but that's impressive if that hole in the P is all filler. Every time I have ever used a glue and dust trick I end up with terrible looking fills once under a finish so I gave up on doing it and instead just filled with CA which would then refract and reflect the color of the wood under it with better results.

That looks like a very good color match. I'll try that next time. Also looks like a good idea for the odd chip or whatever when prepping for finish. I understand it might not work as well for light woods; my favorite for spruce, for example, is to create a plug for a matching divot then glue with HHG because hide glue doesn't discolor the spruce. I didn't think to try it with the sanding dust on darker woods.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Hopefully this will be bigger:



Yeah, the hide glue sure blends better than anything else I have used.

No way that's just filler... it looks super!

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Way!!!

Yep, just sanding dust from the same species of wood and fresh hot hide glue (with urea added to keep it liquid at room temperature).

I was likewise surprised it worked this well.

Yeah that is impressive.