New Side Dots

I have been using 1/8" brass rod for my fretless dot markers, lately. It installs easily (just use a 1/8" drillbit and a razor saw), polishes to a high luster (looks great in normal light, and is easy to see in low lighting due to reflectivity), is inxpensive (enough for 10 basses or so can be had for $5 USD or so), can be sourced locally (most hardware supply stores), and can also be used for dots on the fingerboard face (once again, small but highly visible).

You might just get something like that, and place it where you want to mark your fingerboard positions. Drilling the old ones out and filling them may not look very good. What is your fretboard material? Rosewood? Ebony? Maple? Something else?

Ebony can be easily filled to make the old markers practically invisible. Rosewood might work, but would be more visible than on ebony. Maple will be nearly impossible to do cleanly.

 

I wasn't goign to suggest covering up the old markers, in this case... I'd probably just add the brass ones, which would delineate the fingering locations.

You can fill holes in rosewood (like, say, what you'd get drilling out the old markers) with a mizture of rosewood dust (from sanding a scrap piece of rosewood) mixed with thin superglue (CA glue). You make a paste/slurry of it, and fill the holes with that until they are sligntly over-full, then you sand them smooth.

 

An alternative to moving the dots might be to add fret markers to the top edge of the board; so that they're still invisible from the front. That way the dots could stay where they were - unless you are allergic to fret markers that is

Martin Petersen did this to a bass of mine that he defretted for me, since you are a member of the Sei club you'll know that it came out pretty good

 

I have 2 very similar problems. I had a fretless made for me. My luthier put a side marker on every single fret position. I look down at the neck and I am so confused I cannot play the bass. I have to get rid of all that are not supposed to be there.
Also, I have a 1998 Modulus G5 and I can never see the side dots. They are Abalone and they suck. I like the brass idea..

 

yup......aluminium rod : )

 

Should be easier!

 

You could always bind the FB in a contrasting wood. A well tuned rabbiting plane and a deft hand would remove the edge of the FB and you could install some curly maple or other beautiful wood. Then install markers as you please. I can imagine ways of doing this with a router, but the set up and jig building time would be extreme for a one shot project.

Greg N

 

Drop me a line and I can sort you out with aluminium welding rod I have a mountain of the stuff. It is 2.6 mm and shows up pretty well on darker boards. If you need a scrap of rosewood to make some dust I have that as well.
Alan

 

Darker wood, cool, but mine is Maple... Most of my basses have maple fretboards. I only have 1 Chechen board with problems and it is my most expensive bass!!

 

You could also use short lines of veneer to mark the fret positions. They could extend just a little way onto the face of the fingerboard so that it wasn't like having a lined board. Then your existing dots could remain, but be plainly different from the fret position markers.