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I have a few questions about shell fretboard inlays. First, what is the correct procedure for doing something like block inlays for instance? Is the fretboard radiused before or after the inlays are done? Or are the inlays routed out, fretboard radiused, then the inlays glued and sanded down? That would seem to make more sense. Should they be done before or after slotting the fretboard?

Second, I see some very artistic designs where the inlays come right up against the frets. What if any special considerations does this entail? Are the edges of the shell kept back from the fret slot at all? I would be concerned about the barbs cracking the inlays when the frets were installed. And also that they would be pulled out if a re-fret was ever needed.

Thanks, Brian

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

It is definitely possible to inlay the fretboard after it is radiused - or if you bought a radiused and slotted fretboard.
However, you need to keep the bottom of the cut perfectly flat.
This is how I do it:
To rout the fretboard inlays, the fretboard is held in a channel cut into MDF that is the exact thickness of the fretboard crown.
The block inlays are centered and marked with a pencil.
The bulk of the inlay was removed with a 1/8" end mill, than a 1/32" end mill was used to cut to the line.

Hi Brian. I inlay before i radius the board. But i also use shell that is 1/16" thick so there is no problem removeing it as i radius. The shell that crosses the fret line is camfered after the slots are cut to allow the fret tang to pass without chipping.

Either way is fine. I like route-radius-glue, because it avoids the trouble of keeping the router level on a radiused board, and the trouble of spraying shell dust everywhere when radiusing. Of course, you do still need to radius the shell pieces themselves after gluing them in, but then you can do it by scraper, which doesn't fluff the dust into the air.

If you have any shell pieces that are off center (especially black and gold MOP, which are often not colored all the way through), then it can be worth the trouble to radius first, and tilt the router so it's tangent to the fingerboard surface at the center of the shell piece. That way you get minimal scraping depth at any point on the piece.

But the easiest of all is to do all your inlays in fairly thick wood, before radiusing. It's a lot cheaper, a lot easier to cut, more forgiving to being jammed into a not-quite-fitting pocket, you can inlay one piece at a time, "layering" them, rather than shaping them to mate perfectly before inlaying, you don't have to worry about getting the router depth just right, and they radius right along with the fingerboard without making any worse dust
And yet I have a good stash of shell blanks, and my current guitar's fingerboard has a bunch of pockets routed into it, waiting to be radiused...

One thing to consider is if you were to inlay on a flat fretboard,
with thick pearl, and you radius the whole thing,
the pearl will completely change.
So, I would route the fb when flat,
radius the fb,
radius the pearl, and see how it looks before glue time.
I ain't no inlay expert though,
but have seen a nice piece of pearl look like crap after sanding.
DAMHIKT. Thanks for that, Todd, I finally figured out what that meant.
Ahh!

So, those who inlay prior to radiusing, how are you doing your radius? I had seen a jig that used a router to cut the radius and was planing on making on of my own. I didn't think that you could shape the shell that way though.

Brian

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/