Swap fingerboard?

That's about $300 for the whole bass in the used market.

I suggest instead that you buy a bass with ebony if your heart is set on it.

 

use an iron and a knife to remove the old board, glue and clamp the new board on. But as Charlie says above, this is some pretty high-concept turd polishing. Can you even source a fretted ebony board to fit this model? Swapping the neck would make more sense, or, as Charlie also says, swap out the whole bass for something else.

 

If the reason you want an ebony board is for the black shade...
just stain your rosewood board

 

++1 - You can even do this yourself.
There are black stain markers by Minwax that work.

 

Instant Ebony:

 

I’ve never tried that... have a few doubts on it going down evenly

 

I've found that black Sharpie ink tends to turn purple for whatever reason.

 

Sharpie dries to charcoal grey, not good looking at all.

 

Spalted Purple Ebony! There Ya Go! The More Streaks The Better

 

Sure, replace that board. Remove the old one. Then slot the new board for frets, even before you radius it. Then glue the board onto the neck. When the glue is dry, radius the board, rough sand then finish sand it. I like to put a light sealer on ebony but you might want to skip that.. Then install the frets - I recommend gluing them in. Cut the frets to length and grind the end bevels to roughly finished stated. Then you can proceed to level the frets, recrown, then finish the fret ends. You'll need to recut the nut, or more likely replace it since it's likely to be too low with the new frets. String it up and you're done.

Oh, I skipped a few of the more obvious steps, like sizing the board to the neck, but you'll figure it out.

 

Those are great for touching up dings on black painted headstocks, though they'll probably just make a mess of a fretboard. But hey at least your bass will have that sharpie smell afterward.

 

Stewmac Ebony Fingerboard Dye, which is just re-branded Feibings leather dye. Bam! Pretty convincing ebony board for cheap. By the time you wear through it, you’ll be dead anyway. Skip the sharpie, dries blue/purple.
http://www.stewmac.com/Materials_an...Tints_and_Stains/Black_Fingerboard_Stain.html

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000...eather+dye&dpPl=1&dpID=41X7jT88D8L&ref=plSrch

 

I’ve got, like an hour before we go to dinner. I’m on it!

 

Unless you're doing this primarily in order to learn all of the skills that Turnaround listed (and more)...please just sell the bass and buy one with an ebony board.

 

It looks amazing. Be aware though that the bassist did not change the fingerboard himself, the work was done by Martin Peterson, a professional with years of experience in building custom instruments...more of his work can be seen on this thread.

I don't say this to discourage you from learning the skills to do the project, but just know that what you want to do does require a lot of skills to be learned and perfected...I'd bet even Martin Peterson's first fingerboard installation was more valuable for the learning process than it was for the actual end result!

 

If you do this yourself and this is your first attempt, you will probably THROW away this neck and buy a new one. i've been wrong before. prove me wrong!