Steaming Out Fingerboard and Neck Dents

When the epoxy is dry, I scrape it off with a razor blade.  I taped over all of the blade except a small portion so as to scrape only a small spot at once.

This worked well for the bigger fills, but the epoxy I used to fill the circular divots just popped out.

I had been doing some reading on the great Frank Ford's Frets.com site about fixing dents.  He suggests using a soldering iron in a damp towel over the dent.

EDIT:  I just saw the comment Sven of Argapa Ukuleles made on the last post.  He suggested the steam dent method too!  Thank you Sven!

So I tried it.  And it worked great!  The divots in the fingerboard are gone!

I used my soldering iron on a low heat - about 350 degrees F.  This is much lower than you'd solder with, but I wanted to have control over the heat.  It took about 10 seconds on each dent to bring it up.

Amazing.

I also used the same technique on the dents on the back of the neck. This actually was my first attempt (before the fingerboard) and the heat was too high.  It took off some of the finish - but I can touch it up easily I think.  And the dents, again, are gone!

This actually isn't as bad as it appears in the picture.

Here's the repaired fingerboard extension.  The cracks are still visible from close up, but I didn't want to sand the fingerboard too much.

I think when I oil the board, the cracks will be even less noticeable.  From more than a foot away, they're not visible anyway.

All was moving forward, until I discovered yet another seam split.  This one is right below the neck heel.  It probably happened with all of the other clamping and handling.  Sigh.

So it's glue and clamp one more time.  After this, I can work on the neck touchup, and put the two missing frets on.

Soon, I will hear this little ukulele sing.  Patience, grasshopper.