defret finishing - slot filling?

[highwattage]

I just defretted my Squire Pbass and it plays fantastically. I have two questions
1. Are their any alternatives to wood or epoxy to fill the fret slots
2. (Unrelated) How do you remove the laquer from the bass of the neck.

[Rayzorx]

There is a thread here in the Defretting sticky where a guy used styrene to fill the fret grooves. I guess that's OK if you want white lines.
I'm doing my first defret job and I'm using wood veneers.

As for the lacquer removal, you may want to check out the forums on www.reranch.com/reranch.

I'm sure you'll find some suggestions there.

[Chasarms]

You could use a soft metal like alluminum or copper.

[Pilgrim]

Any solid substance of the right thickness will fill them. I'm the guy who used white styrene, which has advantages...

1) You can buy it in a specific thickness
2) After you get it glued in place, it's easy to trim the excess with a razor blade (try THAT with flat aluminum or brass sheet stock...)
3) When finish sanding the fretboard, it sands the same as the wood, making it easy to get a nice finish.

I bought a craft saw with a blade .022 wide to clean out the slots left by the frets, then used .020 thick styrene to fill them. I thought about using wood, but getting wood in that specific thickness would have been a real pain....and I'd have no idea where to find it. I know that I can't saw wood that thin with the equipment I have.

Seems to me that if you want a harder-to-see filler, epoxy would be fine since it's denser than the rosewood, so it wouldn't compress. But it's certainly a one-way street. Once you want that route, you couldn't go back. And I think metal stock would be a nightmare to work without damaging the fretboard.