| vinyl inlay fretboard stickers information thread
Hi all,
I recently decided to add inlay stickers to my factory lined fretless MIM Jazz neck. I was having a heck of a time adjusting to the unmarked fretboard, and decided to take the easy route of stickers to help me find my way.
I had purchased a bass from Denny (MasterBass!) on TB and I knew that he had been using and loving vinyl inlays for a while, and I liked how his basses looked, so I decided to order some. Found a seller on E-bay called "Creative-Cuts"and decided to plunge the $20.
Long story short, don't try the block inlays on a fretless. The inlays are very thin in profile, but they still are too thick for the fretless fretboard, and resulted in too much buzzing.
I took my bass to my tech and he was surprised that the inlays were stickers. He initially started talking about the inlays being the problem, and the solution being to sand down the fretboard. When I told him we could just peel the inlays off, he was shocked! So the inlays look good. And are pretty convincing in appearance. And they stick and hold just fine.
And I have since learned that they can also be cut with a razor. I took the spare stickers I had from the set I bought, and I cut little squares out, turned them sideways for a diamond effect, applied them to the fretless in a way that put them in between the strings, so no interference with the strings. The shape of the cuts are not perfect (not uniformly square), but they are holding to the surface just fine. I will update this thread to let people know over time how they hold up. I also was able to use a hole punch to make dots, and may use them instead if I become dissatisfied with the squares/diamonds.
But count me as a fan of vinyl decal sticker inlays, they are a cheap and fun way to modify the look of your bass. I wish I could have kept the block inlays. They looked really nice. | 
