Who can fix my epoxied fretless conversion fretboard?

Long story short: I have this old beater Ibanez that I paid someone to fill in the fret gaps (frets were crudely torn out) and then epoxy the board. Well, he did that. And the gaps were filled in, but not that well. It's an old beater and I'm ashamed to admit what I paid him (he did some other work with the pickups and hardware too.) But at some point I might have someone with more know-how clean up the fretboard and wondering and wondering who could do this on the cheap. I've already put too much money into this bass so I don't want to sell it, but I do want the board to look nice. Right now it feels good, plays well, and sounds great. It just looks like it did before I had the work done - frets crudely torn out. The only difference is a clear layer of epoxy over the whole thing.

Mainly I just need the gaps filled in better. My guitar player suggested filling the gaps with black epoxy. He said the clear epoxy could stay on and the black epoxy could be applied over it to fill in the gaps. I am not sure what he means, though, because you don't "feel" the gaps how it is now... you can merely see them. Also, I'd like them not to be that visible... and I don't see how "black" epoxy on rosewood would accomplish this but I'm open to any suggestions.

Anybody know how to do this without breaking my wallet, or know someone who can do it? Keep in mind I am the world's LEAST do-it-yourself kind of guy. My guitar player may be able to, but personally I am ******** (after all, I paid money to have sloppy work done in the first place.. live and learn though! )

I'd be fine with a solid black board.

The Dave said:

It sounds like what you want is a new neck, unless you want to somehow get the epoxy back off, fill the slots with wood putty or something, sand it and stain it to a color similar to the rosewood, then do the epoxy job again. Or, you could redo the whole thing in black epoxy, and just have a solid black board. Either way, it would be a lot less hassle, and probably less money to get a new neck.

Click to expand...

On second thought, I do kind of like the pearl dots to show. Gives me a little guidance. I'll try to take some pics.

I took some pictures. It's kind of hard to tell, but you can kind of see the gaps where the frets were torn out roughly. This is how the bass was when I got it. The guy who epoxied the board did a fairly decent job of coating the board, but instead of using woodfiller in the fret gaps, he just used epoxy. So they are still visible. My guitar player said he could touch up the gaps with black epoxy. He then said I should take it to a nail salon where they can use their special "drying gun" to dry it quickly. He wasn't kidding.

Photos here

Surely there must be "brown epoxy" in existence that could be used to touch up the lines and gaps? Something that may match the rosewood without having to re-do the whole board. It's really not THAT bad. Just some spots that could look better. It plays well and feels good.

Could something like this be used in conjunction with clear epoxy to fill in the gaps without redoing the whole board?

The more I think about this, the more I would be ok with "ebonizing" the whole board. As long as the ebonized finish was hard and stuck to current epoxy. There are already side dots after all..
Now who can help me? I can't do any of this myself, trust me.

Here are some pics if anyone's interested:

http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd252/TimBosby/Ibby/

I am moving this thread to the Luthier's forum. I just realized that the coating on my bass is some kind of polyurethane. Not epoxy. Perhaps this would be easier to remove?