messed up inlays..

[Crusader]

not being able to get a neck with the inlays I wanted from PBG, I purchased one from else where.

I asked them for Black PRS style bird inlays on a Maple fretboard and didn't look at the pictures too closely. my bad.
looks like they routed the inlays and then filled in around them, but they used dark filler that would have been better on a rosewood fretboard. other wise it is a nice neck..

can I fix this?
would it be better to take them out get new ones and filling with lighter Maple colour fill?
or try to remove the fill and replace it?

sorry for all the questions lately.

[wokkaboy]

Hi Crusy don't apologise for too many questions !
You haven't had much joy with necks from other suppliers of late.
Think the easiest fix is to get some sharp pointy tools and try and remove the dark filler and fill it with a maple timbermate.

Would be much easier than trying to remove the inlays, although if you can't remove enough dark filler you may have to resort to that.

You can get sticker inlays but that defeats the purpose of having real inlays

[stan]

sticker inlays might be a good choice here, they are super thin, look ok and should hide this. if you dig them out etc, i think you will always see where they were, almost regardless of how well you do it.

other option is ebonise the fingerboard - make it black, although you want maple which is exactly not black...

[jtsargeant]

A word of caution that Maple TimberMate is not very maple-ish in my experience. WeirdBits has suggested that Pine TimberMate may be a better alternative in my IB-6S build thread http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...ll=1#post86643 .

[wokkaboy]

good tips Sarge I remember your post now about maple timbermate, colour looks way off although it should lighten a bit when dry but woudn't be any where near maple colour by the looks

[jtsargeant]

It tends to dry to more of a salmon colour. Similar to Maple grain lines, at a stretch, I suppose. There is a rather bad image of a patch attempted with the maple TimberMate in the post that the image above was originally posted in.

[wokkaboy]

sure Sarge, salmon colour would look terrible between black inlays and the maple fingerboard

[Crusader]

Ok, thanks guys.

[Brendan]

You may want to stabilise any Timbermate with some CA glue as well. Apply after the Timbermate has dried.

[Crusader]

You haven't had much joy with necks from other suppliers of late.

Just one. Will never use that method again. Live and learn I guess.