Would you paint/dye a maple fretboard?

[ross.pearson]

----I appear to have double posted. I'll request a mod delete this ----

[ross.pearson]

Something I've been considering doing is painting or dying the fretboard on my TL style neck prior to laying down poly. Aside from the obvious "what, why?" questions, are there any good reasons not to do this? I understand most people would tint their finish with an amber or similar, but I don't want to do that as I'm planning to paint/dye the headstock prior to applying finish, and don't want to colour over that.

Say I want my fretboard to be bright pink, could I mask it off, dye it, and then coat with clear poly?

Okay, probably not bright pink, but I'm building a darker distressed looking guitar, and a clean crisp maple board is going to stick out like the dogs proverbials.

Thoughts?

To be honest, I should probably just get another neck with a rosewood fretboard on it, but I'll let the question stand.

[Simon Barden]

Nothing to stop you at all.

A friend of mine has one of these Danelectros:

[Simon Barden]

Re your duplicate post; you should be able to delete it yourself if you go into 'edit' and tick the delete post option at the top. Don't bother add a reason.

[McCreed]

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.

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

[ross.pearson]

Re your duplicate post; you should be able to delete it yourself if you go into 'edit' and tick the delete post option at the top. Don't bother add a reason.

I might have to download the tapatalk app, there doesn't appear to be an option on the desktop/mobile version that I can see...

[ross.pearson]

Nothing to stop you at all.

A friend of mine has one of these Danelectros:

Wow. Looks like someone couldn't wait to put strings on before unwrapping their birthday present.

Cheers for that!

[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?

[vh2580]

No problem staining the neck or fretboard you see a lot of flamed maple necks stained on PRS and Kiessel before final finish.
The paint not sure but there a few signature guitars out there with solid coloured fretboards like the Matt Heaffy white epiphone.
https://guitar.com/news/epiphone-lau...ature-guitars/
So its obviously possible but what you would use for the wear requirement I have no Idea

[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.