Although originally I had wanted the hexagon fretboard to be the fretboard for this project, I ended up starting another fretboard project which ultimately become the final fretboard. I decided on a vine inlay design that I saw in Andy DePaul's gallery.
The piece is derived from the Ibanez Line. I decided on Gold MOP because initially the guitar was to all black and thought it would make a nice contrast.
As with any inlay project I layout my pieces to get a feel for how they will fit. There were 2 issues that I needed to deal with right away. Some of the pieces were large and could only fit one way. This made it imperative that the vine flow just right or it would pus the larger pieces off the fretboard. The second was the vine itself, it ran through the entire piece and its location had to be precise.
I put the pieces in order on an 81/2 X 11 piece of paper and marked off the frets. Unfortunately for me the paper fell on the floor and the pieces were mixed. It was almost impossible to recreate the design so I went with the flow and improvised.
I had done a few inlays by this point so I had a bit of a process. I always ordered my fretboards pre-slotted. I normally get them from stew-mac but have purchased some from other suppliers. After laying out all the pieces and putting together the map, I paint white out over the area to be inlayed. I will put the piece on the white out before it dries. After about 10-20min the piece usually is held fairly tightly. I then trace with a scribe the outline of the piece. I then pop off the shell and use a chisel to outline the shape. I then take the dremel and carefully route out the area. I leave any fine detail or corners to a chisel and/or chip knife.
This process can take some time but usually once I have all my materials I can complete the inlay routing process in 2-4 hours. The most important aspect I think is planning the work and working the plan. The routing just takes patience and practice. Fortunately Ebony is fairly forgiving. It is not the easiest wood to work with, it is hard and usually dry and chips easily. The positive side is you can mix in ebony shavings into the epoxy and after sanding it is very difficult to tell. Once finished and oiled I think Ebony is absolutely beautiful. I never die my fretboards, I love the natural variation. Here is a pic of the finished fretboard with a fresh coat of oil. Notice the grain and color towards the right hand side. This is characteristic of un-dyed ebony, you can get some visual swirling that is just visible to the naked eye.
One issue I run into consistently is the breaking of the inlay pieces. They are rather intricate and delicate and trying to fit them into a rout on a surface with a radius can be tricky. I also break them when I clamp the board to glue them. They actually add character to it (IMHO) but some times it can be tricky sanding it out if the ends do not line up just right.
Once I am done with routing it is time to glue. Epoxy is nasty stuff. Exposure needs to be limited and proper planning is called for. It all needs to be done in one smooth step. Usually I will mix the epoxy and hardner in a 1:1. I always eyeball it. I then mix in the ebony dust until it becomes more of a paste. I will stir this for a good 5 min. I then apply the paste in the route, press the inlay piece in, wipe any gross glue squeeze and continue down fret by fret. I then have a caul which has the reverse radius of the fretboard. I put wax paper over the fretboard then clamp on the caul on the wax paper and let it sit for 24 hours.
The next day when you unclamp it you will see an absolute mess. It will look horrible. Now I get my radius sanding block and start working. I use the stew mac ones, they seem to work fine. The trick is not to move your arms, but your whole body. This produces a more consistent stroke and you won't get an uneven radius.
For sanding I will take 120 grit (Flat) sandpaper and start to take off the glue. I don't care if I flatten the fingerboard a little, I will be re-applying a radius later on. When I have the major gunk off I start with a radius sanding block with 180 gold bond sandpaper and start working it. You need to have a bit of perspective here. The inlay has a radius from the caul pressing on it but sometimes the piece will break or sit un-even due to a bad route or something. So taking into account the thickness of the inlay you sand carefully until most of the glue and whiteout is gone. At this point you will start to see some gaps or wholes from air bubbles. I will then clean the area with an exacto knife and re-apply the epoxy and do the whole thing one more time.
The second time around with 180 grit sandpaper, I will continue sanding for another 5 minutes until the white out is almost gone and there is very little to no glue over the shell. Then I will switch to 220 for the remainder. I like 220 because it really smooths the board out but doesn't put a high gloss on the ebony. I love that high gloss look but not on my fingerboards. I prefer porous but smooth. I sand until the radius is firmly in place, the inlay is clear in all areas and the wood is smooth and uniform.
You will notice that a lot of the fret slots will be filled in with epoxy at this point. You can try and prevent this by putting razor blades into the slots. This particular inlay ran across allt he fret lines anyway so I knew I would have to recut them anyway.
I have a fret saw from Stew Mac but the fret size seems just a tad large for there frets. So when I re-saw my fret slots I usually need to epoxy the frets also.
Here is the finished product. I did the headstock in a matching motif. I installed gold frets, they are fairly large and seem comfortable. I go through the entire fretting process which is to install them with a fret hammer. Trim, file, dress, level, sand, polish. Usually all said this takes about 4-6 hours. I am fussy about my frets...
Meanwhile I have stained the body ebony. It came out with a streaked effect but pretty nice looking. I decided not to re-apply the stain but let the streaks and grain really stand out. I then attached the neck to the guitar. I usually do some checks to ensure that the finger board is straight and a straight edge on the frets will point to a spot about 2-3 mm above where the bridge saddles will sit. I will double check the levelness of the frets and correct any issues. Other than that I just bolt it on. Once I string it up I will do a full setup on it which includes the tension rod and intonation.
In retrospect I probably should have applied the finished without the neck attached, but oh well, for some reason I did not. I put the guitar in a tub and began a series of Danish Oil baths.
The general idea here was to apply enough oil to saturate the wood. What was extra hardened on the surface of the wood. You then wet sand that down creating a slurry which fills the peaks and valleys, the goal being as flat a surface as you get. This took me about 8 baths with graduating sand paper. With a day between baths for drying it was about a 2 week process.
I was personally impressed with the finished product. It was very smooth and flat. The appearence was a matte with a medium gloss. The issue with oil finishes are that they are not very protective. Normally you are going to want something on top of that for added protection.
I decided to try and do poly-urethane. Not having spray equipment (yet) I went the brush route. I won't go into it here but it was a very long process but very satisfying. I applied about a dozen coats in total (with a day drying between each). I then used a polishing wheel to buff. There are numerous websites already that details this process quite well. I was very pleased with the gloss I was able to obtain with the wheel and several varying grit polishing solutions.
I of course had to also do the headstock. I took a piece of ebony I had and cut out the shape of the headstock on my jigsaw. I then inlayed the ebony headstock onto the maple one. I had a little tear out I had to repair in the headstock when I drilled the tuner holes out. I also did an inlay on the headstock.
In between the drying and sanding times for the finishes I went pick guard shopping. Since I already had a yin-yang in the body, I thought that one on the pick guard would work also. I found this one on a custom site some where. I ordered one with the bridge pick up to be a humbucker.
I also started to evaluate wiring schema and pickups. I had enough pickups on hand to complete the guitar but don't know if it will be the final configuration. I have all Seymour Duncan Pickups, in the Bridge Alnico's V's, middle cool rails and neck are dumbuckers. My standard wiring includes the neck pup on demand and a 5-way switch. I insulated the cavities and internal pick guard surface with copper foil and grounded it. This makes a huge difference in hum and I do it consistently. I also had three ebony knobs on hand for the volume and tone controls. Right now I have a chrome output jack but will probably swap that out with a black one later. I used black screws for the pickguard.
The project took just about one year. I did have an issue when I strung it up. I had a bit of a back bow to the neck. When I put a straight edge across the top there was a slight rock (about a mm or so) right around the 6th and 7th frets. I loosened the tension on the truss rod and put a single string on to check for the buzz. The buzz was fairly noticeable but alleviates after the 7th fret. From my perspective I had two choices, I could have re-filed the fret around the 5-9 fret area or put some heavy gauge strings on and see how it worked out. I did the latter putting on .12's on the tops and that seemed to provide the necessary pull and resulted in moving the neck into a very slight relief, almost perfect :-)
The finished guitar plays very well. As I have been playing I keep a list of touch up's for the next string change where I can address anything I need to. Right now there are a couple of areas where I need to polish the frets a little smoother. I am also contemplating some poly on the back of the neck, but am evaluating just the wood and oil finish I have on the neck now...
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