Gecko Fretboard Project

This project was 'one of those' if you get my drift.  It started in a funny way, I purchased a rosewood fretboard from Stew Mac.  When I got it, the fingerboard looked dull and lifeless in color.  There was also a crack at the top of the fretboard.  I called Stew Mac and they said they would said a new board out and keep the old one for scrap.  Oh, Ok.  I must admit, I purchase quite a bit from them, and have had three issues.  All three times I had a replacement free of charge in 3 days.  Anyways this wasn't an advertisement for them.

The fretboard I did recive was actually spectacular in color.  Deep rich oranges and some yellow in a gorgeous swirl pattern.  I instantly new I wanted to work with Paua Abalone.  So I went to Andy DePaules site and started narrowing down my choices ;-)  I thought the oranges and yellows seemed tropical to me so I decided on the geckos.

I knew that doing a design on rosewood would be tricky from the start, but using such a contrasting color would be interesting.  Following my norm I began laying out the pieces.  I had originally thought of them as one per fret but actually decided that I would place them 'randomly' on the fretboard. some crossing fret lines.

As is also my norm, I apply liberal amounts of white out to the fret board and place the inlay on top.  After the white out dries, the inlay sticks enough for me to scribe the outline.  I then use a chisel and outline a stop gap.  Then using my router with a precision base I rout out the area.  I went a little deep on this one, which meant a lot of sanding dried epoxy latere which took a while.  Also a slightly thinner playing surface.