# Detailing a guitar



## nick.s (Dec 21, 2009)

Well, we all know what we're like for attention to detail. Well, my Jackson JDR-94 is essentially all black, bar the fretboard which was rosewood, and I wanted it black. Replacing with ebony would be prohibitively expensive, so ebonising it was my plan of attack. I researched many woodworking tomes and websites, and was left with three choices. Indian ink, aniline dye or iron acetate. With the guitar being 19yrs old, I would have thought the tannins were pretty much gone, so I decided against the iron acetate (reacts with tannins to turn black, very effective) and used the ink and dye.

So I started out a couple of days ago by stripping the board of any grime and gunk by using a diluted isopropyl alcohol and a light scrubbing using a dish sponge with a scouring side and the regular sponge. Below are a few shots showing the colour and condition of the board pre and post cleaning:


































Grime being removed:

























Grime be gone:

























So, the last of the above photos shows the fretboard after it had dried for a couple of days, as you can see it has a nice grain on the rosewood


















19 years of aging on the maple:









Strapped up ready to go:

















Weapon of choice:









The plan was to do a few frets, let it dry and see how I liked the look. Using a light coat of the indian ink, I achieved the below, which I must admit I wasn't overly pleased with:









So onto the aniline dye I went, which gave me nicer results straight away. 









So that is where I am at the moment. I've given it a couple hours inbetween coats, and am letting it dry thoroughly before dressing the board with some oil (probably linseed or maybe a beeswax, I'm currently undecided).

A quick play after reassembly yielded pretty good results, no dye transfer and it doesn't feel any different to play. I'll update probably towards the end of the week


----------



## tmitch45 (Jul 29, 2006)

Looks good mate!


----------



## nick.s (Dec 21, 2009)

Cheers fella, here's a quick shot of it with the fretboard dyed, complete with her stablemates:


----------



## Kimo (Jun 7, 2013)

Need to sort my randy rhoads out soon


----------

