Would you paint/dye a maple fretboard?

[ross.pearson]

You certainly can stain or dye maple any colour you want and then clear coat it.

If you're talking about just doing the fretboard a different colour than the rest of the neck, I think the difficulty would be not getting bleed from the fretboard wood onto the wood under it. I'm not sure simply masking would be able to prevent that. I've never tried it, so can't say emphatically one way or the other.

I had thought about that, but then I'm considering dying the neck darker also, so that might hide any bleeding that happens. All hypothetical at this stage, I'm not firm on the idea. Just interested to see if there's any terrible reason not to do it.

FWIW I don't think I'd use any kind of paint on a fretboard though

Personal taste, or any particular reason?

[McCreed]

Personal taste, or any particular reason?

I suppose a bit of both, but mainly for practical reasons of wear and maintenance.

As far as wear, realistically I guess it would be no different than applying clear lacquer or poly to a maple fretboard, but it could make future fret replacement trickier.

If you got any tear out when removing the frets (which is always a risk no matter careful you are) fixing it could be more difficult to touch up than just a clear coat. I don't think I'd take it on if someone brought it to me for a refret.

[ross.pearson]

I suppose a bit of both, but mainly for practical reasons of wear and maintenance.

As far as wear, realistically I guess it would be no different than applying clear lacquer or poly to a maple fretboard, but it could make future fret replacement trickier.

If you got any tear out when removing the frets (which is always a risk no matter careful you are) fixing it could be more difficult to touch up than just a clear coat. I don't think I'd take it on if someone brought it to me for a refret.

Oh yeah that makes sense. I had considered issues that might occur were someone to wear through the clear, but hadn't considered issues with refrets etc in the future. I think if it were made to be seen rather than played it would be cool to do.

Good to know that it's possible, and has been done a whole bunch, but there are some potential issues with doing it.

I'll probably just leave it alone to be honest.