dying a maple board ... :-|

[Matthew Tucker]

OK so I'm after a useful luthier hint here, and preferably not a disparaging comment about low-end basses.

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.

[Ken Smith]

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.

[Matthew Tucker]

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 !!

[Ken McKay]

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.

[Matthew Tucker]

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!