Originally Posted by
stan
Here is another option:
Use whatever means to ebonize the fretboard you like - ink, another technique, whatever. Do what you need to do to make it black.
There should be little need to mask the frets - as most substances will find it difficult;t to permanently stick to the metal of the frets - and even less so if you polish them first. A very fine grade sandpaper should remove most traces of any substance on the frets - mask and polish as you would if doing a fret dress.
Simply replace the fret dots with polished black plastic. Many older guitars had plastic fret dots and they worked fine...
This would give you a matte black fretboard and gloss black dots.