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I'm thinking of doing some Black block inlays in a maple board.  For this I'd prefer the jet black look of a synthetic vs a darker wood.  Plus polyester doesn't stick that well to ebony.

I have stock on hand of phenolic, vulcanized fibre, vinyl and Black pearloid pickguard scraps.

Any suggestions?

  I have had good luck with phenolic and acrylic.The acrylic tends to get softer when heated,so be aware of how hot your fretboard gets as heating will expand it, leaving you with a shrunken inlay after it cools.

Good luck

Dyed Holly might work. Gibson used this on head plates back when.

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Boat builders use west systems with black filler (also sold by west systems). Overfill your cavity and sand flush. Looks like the highest grade ebony with perfect seams.

Dean

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Dean

Yeah, black epoxy would look nice. Just be sure to seal the maple fb
really well with shellac first, or the dye will bleed into it. Try to keep it all
in the cavity you rout.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Don't have anything to contribute re: black material, other than possible buffalo horn, but I wanted to say 'Hi Sheldon'! Long time no see, at least on a regular basis (I remember you from the heyday of rec.music.makers.builders)

Sheldon,

   If you want an absolute black, I'd recommend either phenolic or Gaboon Ebony, but if you're open to a dark block inlay with some color and character to contrast the Maple you can consider other woods.

   I recently converted a fingerboard on a Music Man 5 string used by my bass player in my church from dots to Zircote blocks and it looked great when it wa done.

   Very dark with a hard contrast to the Maple, but with great lines ad color to add interest.

   Here are a couple of photos of the inlays.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

    Last week, I couldn't get images to post for me, but I'm obviously making up for that with these.

Sorry guys,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Those look great, Kevin.  So do the Picutes - big, but great detail!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Hello, everyone

When I opened this discussion, an occasionally familiar thing happened - giant pages, forcing me to scroll back and forth, right to left to right.  Anyone else seeing this?  Is this caused by a too-large picture file?  Or is this a personal problem - is there something I can do to my machine to make this knock it off?

help

Dan

It is caused by the large pictures.  One of the reasons  pics less than 500kb are encouraged.  But, stuff happens.  

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Dan, its not a personal problem. Well it could be, if it bothers you. But you are right, it is caused by large photos in the thread. There isn't much you can do, unless you want to get a huge monitor.

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Aoibeann

Thanks for the replies.  My poor old eyes would appreciate a bigger monitor, but my poor old wallet says "squint".

I'll just add this to the list of PP's i'm learning to live with.

Dan

    All of the images I posted are between 200k and 250k, but I only specified image information size and not pixel dimensions.

    I think we'd need a pretty huge monitor to have them up in full.

Apologies,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

How about black corian? You can get 4"x4" samples online for $2.00 a piece that you can thickness.

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Randy Muth
RS Muth Guitars Website
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You can probably also get more corian than you can carry for free if you ask nicely at a kitchen fitter's/cabinetmaker's shop.

That is just sick Kevin!

Jared....is that a good thing or a bad thing?


Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

European Boxwood. When building scale model ships, I use to dye the boxwood black. Works lile a dream- Plus, the wood is a dream to work with, relativly hard and tight even grain.

Kevin that would be the awesome kind of sick. :) so it is a good thing.

Kevin, not to hijack this thread, but a friend just gave me his Music Man 5 String to insall a Brazilian peghead veneer, it would need to be sandwiched with maple to match other parts of the guitar but I guess it would look good, he thinks it will.  It's going to be difficult mainly because of the radius I'm going to have to bend into that veneer as it reaches the nut.  I thought about making a copy of the pegead and then bending the veneer to match that rather then trying to put fairly hot wood onto the peghead, though I guess any damage done to the finish would be covered up anyway... Any ideas or suggestions?  Thanks

Bruce

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Bruce Herrmann
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Bruce,
   If you keep the thickness of the Brazilian Rosewood to about .040" or .050" and bend it, you should have no trouble bending to that radius leading up to the nut landing.

    If you do end up laminating it with Brazilian/Maple/Brazilian, I would recommend keeping the Maple and lower Brazilian layer at about .030" and bending them separately and then gluing them using an accurately cut clamping caul in that radius area to squeeze those three laminates together.

    There are several ways that it could be done with good results, but this is just the way that I'd do it.

    Be sure to first remove the thickness of the total of the veneer that you're adding from the headstock thickness in order to maintain the stock dimension in the finished headstock.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Thanks Kevin, that's pretty much how I had envisioned the process, I think your dimensions are right on.  I think I will do the maple laminate as it will keep the esthetics correct.  Removing the correct thickness at the radius will be a bit tricky but not too bad. 
Thanks for the advice.
Bruce

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Bruce Herrmann
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."