Current Fingerboard Inlay material?

[rickfan60]

What kind of resin and pearl toner do you use, Ted?

The toner and resins that I use are both commercial preparations that I buy in large and rather pricey quantities, but perhaps I can recommend alternatives.

For the resin, you should use any water-clear polyester surfboard coating (not laminating or casting) resin. This is slightly thixotropic, and will hold the pearl in suspension better than thinner laminating resins. It also does not yellow, whereas lam resins do not have any UV inhibitors, as they generally are engineering, not aesthetic, components. Lastly, surfboard coating resins are formulated with a soluble hard wax blended in to prevent oxygen inhibition of the surface cure. This is important to get a through-cure.

For a toner, any synthetic pearl toners made for automotive paint will work. Some polyester resin suppliers stock a paste pearl toner that does not settle out.

Now, get on that Google wagon...

Seeing as you are rejecting replies to PMs I'll have to answer you here. My above response was hardly evasive as you described in your PM. I asked a simple question. The man who created the modern Rickenbacker inlays told me the stuff had to be stirred to keep the particles aloft until the resin set which has also been my experience. You then said yours did not require that so I asked about the material you are using. A simple question and hardly a cause for the kind of response you gave.

I respect your knowledge and experience and I greatly appreciate the tips you have passed on to me over the last few years. You have been an invaluable source of information. I don't think there has ever been any doubt about that. The fact is your finishes are superior to what the factory produces and your restoration methods are well though-out and very careful. That does not excuse or justify the arrogance and sarcasm you dispense here here on a regular basis though. If you spent "hours" answering my questions as you said, it may have been because a simple question often illicits a 3 paragraph lecture on the history of craftsmanship instead of simply addressing the essence and spirit of the question. The implication usually being that I am looking for a way to short circuit the learning process and leave out the discipline it takes to truly master something so complex. That is not the case at all. I do understand the doing is much better than reading. My profession is loaded with people who are long on certificates and short on resume. I am all too familiar with the concept. I try to keep my questions simple out of deference to you so you don't have to spend a lot ot time on them. Yes, sometimes a seemingly simple question opens a big can of worms. I can certainly accept that. When it happens I try to learn more about what I am asking.

[rickfan60]

Sorry everyone but that needed to be said. I been in a few of them over the years but I try to avoid forum conflicts. That one followed me right into my private message box and left me no way to respond. My apologies to anyone who was put off by what I said. This is a great community with a lot of really great people and I sincerely hope I did not offend anyone. I, like most of you, come here to share what I know and learn from those who know what I don't. That is what it is all about. I find myself answering the same questions over and over again. The funny thing is, I don't mind at all. I actually enjoy it and will keep doing it. I consider it giving back to those who educated me along the way. I wish I had this kind of information available to me 30 years ago when I began my love affair with Rickenbackers. The fact of the matter is, I left the forum for more than a year because of the petty contentiousness of some of the members. Unfortunately, other long standing and valued forumites did the same. Peter contacted me a few months ago and invited me back. That was a kind gesture and it reminded me how much I enjoy talking about Rickenbackers with all of you so I returned. The last few weeks have been fun. I have enjoyed reconnecting with you all and with my interest in guitar repair. What happened earlier in this thread and off line shortly thereafter is exacltly why I (and others) stopped posting here. Paul you are clearly a valued forum member. Your opinions are worth hearing and your work is truly inspirational. I aspire to some small fraction of what you have accomplished. That being said. The way you treat people here sometimes is not consistent with the excellence you have achieved in other areas of your life. We are all here for the same reason. Being made to feel bad about having asked a question is not what any of us signed up for. I am saying this because there are others who feel the same way but choose to stay silent in public. Others have made angry comments and left the forum altogether which is even worse. No forum member should ever have to feel bad because of something another forum member has said. This is especially true if that member is more than just a forum user. To your credit you saved the worst for your private message you sent me but you left me no way to reply. I am sure you will just dismiss what I have said here with some witty quip, and that is fine. I just hope you will think twice before take someone else to task for simply asking a question or making a statement.

[jingle_jangle]

Ted, in order to reject a reply to a PM, I first have to receive the PM or notification thereof. In fact, I checked in, looking for for a reply from you, all day today. Nada. After reading your post, I checked again, and apparently the PM reply you sent never made it to my In-Box, if, in fact, you did send it.

But my failure to reply is, I suppose good reason to go public, and burden others with a situation that no one cares about save me and you.

I chose to PM you in order to avoid what you have just done--taking an otherwise private communication public. I originally was going to post the PM I sent you, but decided to take it private, for good reason.

Does anybody really care about our issues with each other? The purpose of this (and the painting thread, in which I patiently and with great detail answered your every question) was to share the information with you, the asker, and anyone who cared to read it. There seems to be a certain hunger/thirst for accurate information on this site, both in the historic vein and the technical. I'm all too happy to share my knowledge and experience, and to accept from anyone else the knowledge to fill in my own gaps and blind spots.

You make my PM to you sound pretty bad, but I was not insulting, and since you've chosen to take it public, I might as well say that I simply asked you why, in light of my sharing any info you requested, at length, and in detail, why you were playing coy about a simple matter like the resin you were using, when my only intention was to help you find a better one. My final comment was that it wasn't the resin that was the issue--it was the spirit of "share the wealth", wealth being information.

[teb]

Actually, you should both stop bickering and spend that time upgrading your resin technology to modern standards. Polyester resin on wood is a joke and pouring it over painted wood is even worse. A multi-layer bond is only as good as it's weakest layer and paint makes a lousy base for resin of any sort. It guarantees that your bond will be weak. Pre-coating should be done with a very thin layer of plain, epoxy resin (ideally heated for greater penetration) or a solvent-diluted epoxy like C.P.E.S (Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer - look up "The Rot Doctor", but don't believe everything he says). The pigmented base coat should be added as another thin coat of epoxy containing the grey pigment of your choice. This sticks to the pre-coat which sticks to the wood and the pour will stick to the pigment layer. Then you pour the fill using epoxy resin mixed with the pearly stuff - minimal fumes and it doesn't shrink. There are a wide variety of epoxy resins available with various viscosities. "System 3" epoxies might be a good place to start and you don't need to buy big industrial quantities. I can see why the factory would want to use polyester - it's cheap, fast to harden and much of their technology is rooted in the 1960's. On the other hand it's very difficult for anyone who knows beans about mixing wood and resin to even take this method of pouring polyester inlays seriously. I don't know an awful lot about guitar building, but my background is wood mixed with polyester and epoxy resins as a sculpture major in college, followed by 35 years of building wood/composite boats where polyester resin over wood would has a terrible track record and was largely abandoned by the high quality builders nearly 30 years ago.

[admin]

Good morning RickResource Forum. No two days are ever the same here and as I sign on each morning I never know what challenging subject matter awaits me.

I would like to say that Paul and Ted have left us with little doubt that the finishing touches to the instruments we love require more thought and effort than many of us might imagine. In listening to both I have learned to admire the dedication and appreciate the planning an preparation behind the scenes that goes into the work that is beneath our finger tips with each note that we perform. As Teb has so aptly put, knowing what is beneath the top layer is important if we are to move on and keep our thoughts and knowledge current. I have learned much this morning about inlays and about the unique qualities of those who have shared information in this thread.

Communication is often times a most precarious thing, with its success or failure based on the mechanisms in place that allow for its passage, our availability to it and the time constraints before us. With so many demands on our daily routine, I am still amazed that we are able to keep in touch the way we do. Not every message gets through and when they do we are not always able to respond in a manner that we would care to. This is life and to the extent that the Forum messaging system has let you down, please accept my apology. Perhaps conventional emails in addition to PMs and posts round out the available options for us to use in the future.

I want to thank you both for sharing and for discussing your techniques in a way that allows for the novice to appreciate the depth of your understanding. It allows me to appreciate your talents all the more. I am impressed with the restraint that you both used in your comments associated with the frustration of being unable to touch base in the timely manner that you may have wished.

I would be very interested if both Ted and Paul could provide use with an brief demonstration of their technique in a mock up situation in which we could see a couple of steps leading to the final product. Perhaps this would give us a better idea of what floats your boat (for you Teb) and the readers here could benefit from the demonstration. Teb may be on to something that will take your work to the next level. Should my suggestion of having you take more of your time here be too presumptuous, I apologize. But I would love to see the best "inlayed" plans of mice and men. Why set sail on the high tide when you can remain ashore with us at the nearest tavern discussing the plans for your next journey together.

As we move forward to a new day, I offer you the following inlay that is as promising as the sunrise that is before me.

I am taken by the skilled work that is available and I offer the site of Jimmi Wingert as but one of many examples.

[jingle_jangle]

"Actually, you should both stop bickering and spend that time upgrading your resin technology to modern standards. Polyester resin on wood is a joke and pouring it over painted wood is even worse. A multi-layer bond is only as good as it's weakest layer and paint makes a lousy base for resin of any sort. It guarantees that your bond will be weak."

Absolutely true, Todd, if we were talking about finishes in exterior use, exposed to "the elements". The way that RIC does it and has done it for yonks, is to use paint as a base for the inlays. I neglected to mention (not enough detail? Hmmm...) that I use a polyester resin with colorant added as my "paint" in all my new fretboards, and pour my inlays while the PE "paint" is still in its "green" state, to assure a chemical bond. You are correct that there are adhesion problems between polyester resin and most paints (I think I referred to this in my above lengthy post). As to using "modern technology", I suppose you're referring to the use of epoxy as an alternative, since the moisture content in the fretboard wood would wreak havoc on any polyurethane. Unfortunately, I have yet to find an epoxy that remains crystal-clear over time in this sort of use, and I have access to the world's supply of data sheets on these materials. If you can recommend one, I would be most grateful.

Also, remember that we're not building boats here, and the polyester/wood joint (which is a strong mechanical one where this sort of light-duty use is anticipated, provided that there is no paint layer in between the two) theoretically is meant only for indoor exposure, as is the conversion varnish finishing system. And also note that RIC has used this system for decades--including the paint. I've seen inlays show hairline cracks, but have not had one actually come out of its recess yet.

To your first statement: I believe, as do the greater majority of participants in this Forum, that ad hominem discussions are not the stuff of productive debate.

[jingle_jangle]

Anyway, here is a pictorial on how I do the old, sparkly inlays. In this case, it was my Jazzbo that received the fretboard shown.

First, the inlay recesses are cut with a table saw and small router with a 1/8" bit. The pigmented polyester is hand-painted into the recess edges with a brush. The bottoms of these recesses are not painted, but in the case of the swirly inlays, the entire recess would be painted with the polyester. It bonds very well to the wood, and the bond is mechanical:



Next, inlays are cut from sparkly pearl sheet. These cuts must be very precise in terms of size and angle. No gaps are permissible:



The inlays are neatly glued into place with epoxy. Note how they hang out of both sides of the recess:



Next, the inlays are trimmed flush with the fretboard edges, and the edge of the fretboard is taped off to provide a wall to keep the resin from running out of the recess. A crystal-clear polyester surfboard resin is poured into the recesses over the pearl. Note that, although not visible, the pigmented polyester "paint" is still in its "green" state (it is neither soft nor hard). In this state, it is still susceptible to chemically bonding with other polyester applied over it.





Following an overnight cure, the fretboard is radiused:



Here the board is wiped with some solvent to show the grain:



Last, the fretboard is rabbetted on both edges for the neck binding. The Jazzbo has a double-rabbet, because of the double binding. The board is glued to the neck, the neck is attached to the guitar, and after a whole lotta other work, the finished item looks like:



Here are some shots of the swirly inlay process:

This guitar, an '80s 620, was a candidate for full-width inlays, so the old inlays were chipped out and the recesses were carefully enlarged to full width. Note that, although the inlays were intact and very difficult ot chisel out, when they did come out, they verify Todd's observation that polyester does not stick well to paint. The factory gray paint is still intact in the bottom of the recess.



The inlay recesses are roughed-up with a file to provide a base for the pigmented polyester paint:





Next, the pigmented polyester is catalyzed and brushed into the recesses:



Pearl essence is mixed into the catalyzed water-clear polyester, which is poured into the recesses after they're taped off:



Form this point on, it's a matter of sanding the fretboard and finishing, but here's a shot of a sealed board before it's varnished, buffed out, and polished:



I encourage Ted to share photos of his own process.

[admin]

Paul: Thanks for turning this thread up to 11. A truck load of work, even to post and describe the events here. Certainly a time consuming process. This certainly gives new insight into the cost of manufacturing one of these instruments. Further, I can see how this process could weaken the neck compared to the dot fret markers.

I very much appreciate your detailed explanation. We are all the better for it. You have also talked me out of doing this at home.

[teb]

Gorgeous stuff Paul (as always). While it's true that most of us don't leave our Rickenbackers out chained to a mooring buoy on the lake all summer, the part of the discussion that first got my attention was the strength (or reduced strength) consideration due to cutting and filling slots in the fingerboard. As far as I can tell, the inlays in my Ricks have caused no problems weakening the necks and I'm not really concerned that they ever will. I seem to always end up with guitars built in the 1985-early '90's era and and they're all doing just fine. On the other hand, when such a strength issue is brought up, the boatbuilder in me automatically says that the first step is to abandon the '60's technology and replace it with something stronger - which does exist and which is noticably stronger. You're still not likely to ever achieve the strength of an un-slotted hunk of wood, especially when the cuts have straight sides, as opposed to under-cutting them or some sort of scarph with beveled sides and more surface area (probably very ugly in this context) but improving the bond and eliminating shrinkage and solvents (going 100% solids on your resin) is stronger. The test of a resin/wood bond in my line of work is "Does it exceed the grain strength of the wood?" - meaning that if you could get hold of the resin and rip it away, would it take wood with it, making the wood itself the weakest point in the system, or does the resin pop out all by itself? Once you have exceeded the grain strength of the wood, there is little or nothing you can do to make the bond stronger as any failure will most likely be wood separating from wood, rather than resin from wood. Since there are no polyester resins specifically formulated for sealing wood or bonding to wood and since polyester resin-to-wood bonds seldom consistently meet the grain strength of even soft woods like spruce and cedar (let alone any kind of harder woods or oily, tropical species) it immediately raises a red flag to a boatbuilder if strength is an issue. The fact that it shrinks as it hardens (further weakining the bond) runs that flag up the pole even farther and the very idea of pre-coating the wood with paint (as we are probably now looking at the "grain strength" of either the resin-to-paint bond or the paint-to-wood bond being the weakest link in a system that has to be, at least to some limited extent structural) causes the red flag to shoot off the top of the pole and head for Venus.

Like I said, when reality rears it's head, I don't personally see anything wrong with the factory inlays or those that you guys are doing and I'm certainly not worried that inlays all over the world will suddenly start popping or necks breaking as a result of full-width inlays. But if, as some people seem to think, strength of fingerboards with large hunks of fill in them an issue, the techniques being used aren't contributing to maximum strength. They may be pretty as hell, but polyester resin just doesn't stick to hardwood well enough to be considered structural. For epoxy experiments (and it would certainly take some experimentation) I'd probably start with System-3 "Mirror-Coat" which is made for tabletops and maybe "WEST Epoxy "105/207 which is specifically formulated for clear finishes and which does have some UV absorber added. We used to buy a UV absorber called "UV-9" which we could mix into resin ourselves. It's been a while and by now, they're probably up to UV-20 or something, but it was pretty easy to work with. In any case, there is plenty of stuff out there to play with if anybody wants to and I don't want to see an interesting thread get derailed by a silly argument between two guys who obviously respect each other. I have some inlay sample photos, but they're classified at the moment while we figure out exactly what we're doing. I'm working on something for my 330/12 MG that may be pretty cool. It will likely honk-off the purists, but that never stopped me before. I'm a guitar player, not a collector.

[jingle_jangle]

Todd, when I used to do Rolls-Royce dashboards, I used bar-top varnish, and it worked fine on that application. I of course considered using it in fretboards, but the loooonnnnggg cure times really put me off, especially when we're talking that the pigmented paint coating on the bottom of the recesses should be of the same material. For my own purposes, the polyester system is still superior.

Incidentally, I re-did the inlays on an acoustic neck recently. The polyester did take away some wood splinters when I chipped it out, proving that the pigmented polyester base coat's bond to the (roughed-up) wood of the fretboard, is extremely strong. I think that where things go wrong is in using anything but PE for the base coat in the recesses (if the pearl fill is to be polyester, too, of course). As I've said before, PE does not stick to paint, although it adheres very well to itself, provided it's recoated while in its green state.

Gotta go now and untie the 360/12. With the nice weather we've been having, it's overdue for a day trip into the Bay...

[scotty]

Stunning work as usual and great to read and watch Brilliant thread.

[teb]

Back in the days when we still used polyester resin for fiberglassing wood-strip canoes and kayaks we tried a whole bunch of different resins, diluted resins and priming techniques to to get maximum adhesion (hitting a rock and peeling a big sheet of fiberglass off of the boat's bottom can spoil your whole day). We finally settled on a laquer sanding sealer (Pratt & Lambert "Vitraloid Sealer" - smells like a 20 ton banana). We would roll a couple coats on the bare wood and both the hammer test and on-the-water use showed that it improved the bond and reduced delamination of the polyester from the wood. I don't know enough chemistry to say whether it was a chemical bond between the two combined with the increased penetration of the thin laquer into the wood or what the story was, but it did make a durability difference with the resin that we normally used. Whether grey laquer of some sort would do the same, I don't know, but there certainly isn't much cooperation going on between resin and most regular paint.

[jingle_jangle]

This hit me right away the first time I saw that the inlays would require a base color for max reflectance and color purity. I knew that RIC painted the inlay recesses, but with what? Answer: same material (polyester) but with a nice dose of opaque pigment in the appropriate color. For me, this color varies with the vintage of the guitar or bass...older stuff gets a cream color, newer stuff the light gray.

Polyester holding onto lacquer is not my experience--it usually wants to soften and wrinkle. Perhaps this stuff you're talking about was a vinyl sealer? Smells a bit strange because of the xylene, butyl acetate and toluene in the formulation, but recommended under CV and polyester lacquer finishes.

[admin]

Smells a bit strange because of the xylene, butyl acetate and toluene in the formulation, but recommended under CV and polyester lacquer finishes.

It sounds as if one needs to be a bit careful when doing this work to avoid being a mad as a hatter.

[jingle_jangle]

As a side note, I was sealing a couple of acoustics last night prior to shooting some color onto them, and noticed the vinyl sealer smell first-hand.

Yup, bananas X1000. Not me, the sealer, Peter. This could be the "lacquer" that Todd is referring to, I think. In any case, the secret to adhesion between this stuff and polyester is, I think, film thickness. Less thickness = better adhesion. I am not, however, going to change my methods...the polyester paint is best for base coats under either type of inlay, I think.

Sometimes there are unlikely combinations of materials that act contrary to experience. Example: Since 1972, I've been involved heavily in the technology of precision soft plastics tooling, using RTV silicone for molds of precision parts.

One of RTV's best advantages, chemically, is that it does not attack any substrates, and in fact, the silicone self-releases from both pattern and molded part.

In writing a basic modelmaking and moldmaking class for the University, I came upon a situation where I tried something new--using RTV to make molds of a clay master model, instead of composite layups. RTVs will not stick to clay; this is good and desirable. I advised sealing the clay with shellac--the same way that composite (rigid fiberglass) molds are made.

I found out the hard way that RTV sticks to shellacked surfaces, when I ran a demo piece and could not remove the clay from the mold. Even after something like 3,000 molds and maybe 100,000 parts worth of experience, something happened contrary to both experience and logic, which was not mentioned in any literature, either.

Oh, my point? Sometimes illogical things happen in processes that take things and thinking in a new direction. Like polyester resin adhering to paint.