Double Bass Chip/Crack in Ebony. Suggestions for fillers

[epy]

I have a noticeable sized chip in my fingerboard around the 7th fret position. I was talking to my local luthier and he said the easiest repair would be some ebony wood filler to patch it up. Does anyone have any experience doing this and any suggestion on wood fillers?

 

[forester]

superglue.... accellerator is helpful too. flat sand w/ 400 grit and finnish off w/0000 steel wool. easy and cost effective.

 

[Cody Sisk]

superglue.... accellerator is helpful too. flat sand w/ 400 grit and finnish off w/0000 steel wool. easy and cost effective.

+1 Ebony dust and superglue work very well to "make" ebony..

 

[robobass]

I think the most common approach is ebony dust bonded with superglue. I don't think you can buy "ebony wood filler", unless your luthier just means black wood putty. Typically you hold a scrap of ebony against the belt sander and collect the dust. You dab a bit of superglue into the void, cover it with the dust, and press it in. Repeat as necessary until you've completely filled the void, and then sand it flush and finish.

This method was explained to me by an expert bow guy. I've done it a few times, and for small voids and cracks I find it very effective. Take precautions of course. Both abony dust and cyanoacrylate fumes are nothing you want to breath, and the CA isn't nice to your fingers or to the varnish on your bass. That said, it isn't a difficult tecnique.

 

[bigolbassguy]

Stewmac makes a slow-setting black epoxy that would probably work great.

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[tstone]

You haven't told us how big the chip is and where it is. In the middle of the board? on an edge?

If it's on an edge, which is more likely, I think the best repair is to take a razor knife and carve the void into a recognizable geometric shape with flat surfaces, then fashion an ebony filler piece and glue it in. You'd make the filler piece a little oversize and then file/scrape/sand it down flush after the glue dried. If you replace wood with wood, and you have to have any planing or scraping done on the board in the future, there are no discontinuities in the material.

Some alternatives: I've made a stiff putty out of ebony dust and five-minute epoxy that works well for small voids. There's also a black epoxy putty called Milliput that dries very hard and is a matte jet black color. It's available in hobby shops.

 

[Rickett Customs]

Yes, do tell....How Big? There's going to be a limit to how big of a "chunk" we're talking, especially with epoxy or CA ebony filler.....

 

[Jake deVilliers]

superglue.... accellerator is helpful too. flat sand w/ 400 grit and finnish off w/0000 steel wool. easy and cost effective.

+1 Ebony dust and superglue work very well to "make" ebony.

You've got two identical answers from professional repairmen on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. You can add the Pacific Coast too, as far as I'm concerned!

 

[epy]

It is just under a centimeter squared (for the larger crack) with cm long cracks jutting out to the north and south-east. It is dead-center on the ebony board. My luthier was talking about an epoxy with ebony dust, not ebony wood filler like I said before.

 

[forester]

if it's just cracks (checks) dusted epoxy pushed in would be just fine.

 

[sjd007]

My FB had a small crack when I bought it right down the end (bridge end) - prob from transport knock. Anyway, I went the superglue route and it has been fine for the last 2 years.

I respaced my nut using the fingerboard ebony powder from that job, and superglue to fill the old gaps and re-file new ones. They have also lasted the distance without falling apart (and I imagine they are under a lot greater stress).

I'd +1 on the superglue for this job. Epoxy can tend to be a little soft (but of course there are so many out there, some are so hard as to be brittle) - araldite is one of the softer ones!

Simon