dying a maple board ... :-|
OK so I'm after a useful luthier hint here, and preferably not a disparaging comment about low-end basses.:D
Young fella brought in a CCB with a painted maple fingerboard. I have stripped the horrid black paint, dressed the board, reshaped the treetrunk it was attached to and now the fingerboard and neck is in playable shape. I could just leave the board natural-coloured, oil it a little, it would work OK, but look ... odd. I thought I might be able to dye the thing black again, because the maple takes up stain very nicely, but I'm wondering whether anyone has a hint on how to dye the fingerboard without the dye bleeding past the neck glue line onto the neck. Masking tape won't work. And so far my tests with making a knife cut along the glue line are not very successful, the dye bleeds anyway. Maybe i should fill the knife cut with a tiny squeeze of epoxy and then scrape back down when it's set? Then apply the dye? Has anyone got a neat way of doing this? And, YES its a crap bass, and NO its probably not worth the effort, but YES for various reasons I'm doing the job. :) |
??
Maybe, tape the neck, and first 'paint' the side of the fb a dull black paint that will match the dye and then die the FB surface. Possible? Magic/permanent marker should work on the side as well for staining without much if any bleed at all.
|
thanks ken the paint idea might work. i already tried marker pen but it bleeds just as bad.
i suppose i could try to seal the neck side of the seam with shellac, too. running out of maple scrsps to test these ideas on though !! |
Matthew, I usually use fingerboard dye which is aniline I believe and carefully apply it to the side with a q-tip. I watch how far the die travels down the side as I apply and usually get a pretty good stain that way. I then follow with a liberal coat of bees wax.
|
Kens, thank you for your help.
In the end a different brand marker pen worked out quite well for the edges, the ink stayed put much better. The dye doesn't quite match the pen ink black but I can make it work! |
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 02:45 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.7.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 2007 - Ken Smith Basses, LTD. (All Rights Reserved)