Archtop Quilted Tele

[bargeloobs]

For my MOP dots I cut some rounds of maple veneer and super-glued them into the dot holes to shallow them up to the required depth. A little excess squeeze of super glue will self-level in the hole, let it dry, double-check your depth then glue in the dot.

The hardest thing I found was accurately guessimating how much packing was required for each hole, as it varied a bit. In the end I grabbed a spare MOP dot, super-glued it to a bit of bamboo/chopstick, then ground down the sides a touch so it was slightly undersize (so it wouldn't jam in the holes)... this was my depth gauge when packing each hole. I'd put the packing in, check that the dot would be just fractionally proud across the peak of the fretboard, then glue the packing in place and let it dry throughly before gluing the dot in.

Also, line up your dots on some masking tape and check how they look in the light from different angles. You may find some will look dull or out of place compared to the others and will need to be rotated or swapped around so they 'match'. Then, try to keep that ordering and rotation when you're installing them.

I read your trick on cutting out the little rounds out of veneer Weirdy, it worked a treat. As the holes varied in depth so much some had as much as three to get them to the right depth while other holes only needed one.

Before that I reamed the holes out to the correct diameter (6mm in my case), then packed them out.
I glued a dot to the end of a drill bit, similar to what you had done as a depth gauge but unfortunately the first hole (see red circle in pic) I poked it into it it stuck fast and then came off the drill bit....Doh, so there it stayed. Worst part was I'd stuck the Paua to the drill bit, good side down so when it went in the hole it had the inner part of the shell facing upwards and I only got 12 dots in total, no spares.
Apart from that little mishap it all went pretty smoothly, and the Paua shell looks great, although hard to show with my phones camera.
I'm thinking now's a good a time as any to address the little chips in the fretboard before sanding up the grits and I was just wondering what makes the best filler, ebony dust and wood glue, ebony dust and super glue, or something else all together?