Home made Ebony wood filler

[Dansk_84]

Ive just started to rout the inlay cavitys into the ebony fingerbnoard of my guitar, now when i go to place the inlay into the freshly routered cavity i find that there are tiny little gaps around the edge. These gaps arent horrendous or obvious so they are not a major problem, its just i want to fill them it to make the neck completely smooth.
Ive heard that you can make your own wood filler using the shavings of the ebony and mixing it with wood glue. Has anybody tryed this before and can they advise what kind of glue to use?

Dan

[David Schwab]

You can mix the ebony dust you got when routing or sanding the board with epoxy. You can also mix some lampblack with epoxy. They sell that at Stew-Mac.

Just make sure the epoxy is mixed well or it might swell later on.

[voodoochild]

You can mix the ebony dust you got when routing or sanding the board with epoxy. You can also mix some lampblack with epoxy. They sell that at Stew-Mac.

Just make sure the epoxy is mixed well or it might swell later on.

Yes. Epoxy and wood dust or powder dye. I tried wood glue but it shrinks over time and leaves a funny looking outline around the inlay. Also you can use super glue for the filling the small cuts or grooves in the inlays for accenting. Just rub wood dust into the spaces and drop super glue in. Then sand it flush. Cool for doing fancy inlay work.

[David Schwab]

I somehow forgot all about super glue even though I use it all the time!

[jack briggs]

Just get black CA glue. Much less fuss than with ebony dust and it looks better, too.


Cheers,

[EffectsGuru]

OK, whatyour talking about is VERY common, as a matter of fact, without CNC you will always have a gap that is why builders use ebony, what you want to do for future reference is mix ebony dust (made from your sander) with an epoxy (24 hour should be fine), and you should set the inlay with that as well...then when your done you sand it down... but I can't remember if you radius the fretboard before or after you inlay... if you do it in the wrong order your inlays will NOT be the same shape. But you should be able to just fill in the gaps with epoxy and ebony dust now after the fact ( I dont't know what you used for an adhesive but in the future stick with epoxy for inlays). This is what we did at Roberto Venn School of Guitar Luthiery (I'm a graduate).