Fingerboard and Inlay Fixes on the Guild F50 Guitar

I'm making good progress on filling the gaps and breaks and stuff on the fingerboard extension.

But that sure is ugly right now, innit?

Fortunately I have most of the pieces that came off.   Just you wait, it's going to look a lot better soon.

So I get out some Titebond and go at it.

Another reason the fingerboard was so weak at that 15th fret joint is because of the binding that's inlaid into the edges of the board.  It looks wonderful, but since the board had to be routed for it, that area that was removed makes it that much weaker.  You can really see how it was put together in that shot above.

Here's what it looks like when glued all back together.  Much better, huh?

I had filled the access holes for the steamer hose earlier.  They just need another layer of filler on the top.

Magic dust, that is.  Black wood.  Ebony tea.

We pack that into the holes and cracks on the fingerboard.

Apply some thin CA (super glue) to the ebony sawdust fill.  Let it dry for a few hours.

Then it's hard enough to scrape down level to the fingerboard surface and then be sanded. 

Lookit that.  Much better than the first picture, huh?

You can see some small cracks and some additional levelling to be done.  I will do a second pass with the filler, but first I need to repair the little missing corner of the pearl inlay.

The piece broke off, and I actually had it stuck on a piece of tape on the workbench.  But it somehow vanished off the workbench!  I was not happy.  On the other hand, I didn't lose all the other little bits of fingerboard that were far more critical, so I'm not too upset.

And so, armed with a piece of pearl blank and a scribing tool, I attempt to fabricate a replacement for the chunk of missing pearl.

You can see the little triangle I scribed on the pearl.  It's bigger than I need it - I figure I can sand it to a more exact fit later.

I've wanted to learn how to do inlay for a long time.  This may (or may not) be a good start.

With my newly acquired Grobet jewelers saw and a pearl cutting jig, I cut out the pearl.

This is fun!  Now I'm getting all kinds of ideas for instruments I have built only in my mind.

The saw blades are extremely fine.  I used a medium blade and it worked well. 

Here's the piece of pearl I cut.  A lot larger than what I need, but I'm fairly confident I can sand it to fit. 

I realize some folks would look at this and think that corner is not a big deal, and they would leave it as is.  But this is the kind of thing that will make me crazy every time I see it.  Better to try and fix it, I think.