Im thinking about painting the fretboard on a bass I'm working on. It would be black, but I'm not sure how it would turn out. Any advice? Sorry if I'm a noob, this is my first build.
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Painting a fretboard?
- Thread starter ricbass440
- Start date
I am incredibly inexperienced with most things regarding painting wood. However I believe I have asked this before and the answer i got was something along the lines of painting wasn't suggested but rather stripping staining then re-coating the fingerboard. I really don't remember much else about it and I didn't actually ask on here so that could be pure B.S. but at the time it made sense so I noted it in my mind..
Good luck and I wish you the best!
Good luck and I wish you the best!
If you're going to paint a fretboard, you're going to want a wood type that in general isn't too oily and paint can adhere to well. It's not unlike painting the back of the neck, or even just regular clear finish, it's all in the prep work.
Barring all that, the strings will cause abuse / wear to the paint job in short time, so a few coats of clear lacquer or epoxy finished over the paint will keep it in good order much longer. Not unlike a regular gloss-finish maple fretboard.
Barring all that, the strings will cause abuse / wear to the paint job in short time, so a few coats of clear lacquer or epoxy finished over the paint will keep it in good order much longer. Not unlike a regular gloss-finish maple fretboard.
I'd mix in black pigment to a good epoxy and go that route. West System makes a graphite mix in that's designed to lower friction on boat rudders and stuff. If you could get it in a small enough quantity, that would be ideal.
I played a friend's bass build this summer where he had done a green and blue marbleized finish on the entire bass, including the fingerboard. It was ugly but in a funny way (the good kind of funny). Anyway, he had several clearcoat layers over the f.b. paint and it seemed to be fine.
All I know for certain is that Larry Graham's always owned a Moon bass with a white painted fretboard, and that seemed to work.
