Strat inlays

Guitarist93

Hi, I am making a fender stratocaster for my leaving certificate and I need some help,
I was wondering could anyone tell me where I could get the fret inlays for a strat ? Is there any shop in Ireland that I can get them in instead of ordering them online.
But they will have to be black inlays because my guitar is being modelled on the 1970's vintage startocaster so I need black inlays. Can someone help me ?

Banjo

I don't know of any shops stocking them but you could have a look over on TDPRI.com's Telecaster Home Depot build threads - they have lots of interesting ideas on how to make dot inlays out of ordinary household materials - either punching circles out of hard black material that's roughly the right thickeness or cutting thick enough lengths from black tubes/rods. If for example you have some scrap rosewood from an old fingerboard and cut dots out with a hole saw bit. Should contrast nicely with a maple neck.

There was also a cool idea on CigarBoxNation that I can't find a link to at the moment, but basically you plane off long thin cuts of a contrasting wood, the plane will naturally cause the thin cuts to spiral up. You curl them tight and put them into the inlay hole that you've forstnered out of your fretboard, then stick them in with epoxy. You could even add pigment to the epoxy that compliments the colour of the contrasting wood to encoolify(tm) the effect.

Ravelleman

Strats with maple fretboards don't have inlays. They're black dots painted on to the fretboard and covered in poly (or whatever)...

spoonbadger

Ravelleman wrote: »

Strats with maple fretboards don't have inlays. They're black dots painted on to the fretboard and covered in poly (or whatever)...

Em, no. They have black inlays.

What?

Ravelleman

^

Yeah, this is actually truth. Don't know what I was smoking there.

Black phenolic resin apparently.

Johnny Storm

Guitarist93 wrote: »

Hi, I am making a fender stratocaster for my leaving certificate and I need some help,
I was wondering could anyone tell me where I could get the fret inlays for a strat ? Is there any shop in Ireland that I can get them in instead of ordering them online.
But they will have to be black inlays because my guitar is being modelled on the 1970's vintage startocaster so I need black inlays. Can someone help me ?

I doubt very much if you'll get them in an actual shop in Ireland.
Here's an on-line source in UK (no black ones either) http://www.axesrus.com/axefret.htm
Making them yourself as Banjo said is probably the least of your worries if you're doing a whole strat, I'd guess.

nialldabass

Early strats used a putty filler, you could make a black filler and laquer over
Alternatively, you could find a round black plastic coat hanger and cut that into the right size
sometimes the center is hollow where the plastic has been extruded, but I've used it and have seen others use it since, so I'm not completely mad.

Guitarist93

Thank you to everyone who tried to help me and gave some advice. To the people who suggested that i make the inlays , i cant because there is limited things in my school. so i have decided to try and order them online. And another person said that strats with maple necks don't have inlay dots, due to lack of supplies in school i am using ash to make the neck of my guitar. It looks very well at the moment i just need to get the inlay dots, and wire up the pick-ups and tone controls then i just have to put the strings on it. But again thank you to everyone for the help and advice.:D

Johnny Storm

Best wishes with your project!
How about posting some pics when you are finished?

Guitarist93

Thank you very much.
Yes I will post some pictures of my guitar when it is finished. I am in the middle of wiring it up and then i will varnish or stain it and it will be finished. I am not going to spray paint it because if i make a mess of the painting it will ruin the whole guitar. I hope to have the pictures of it up next Wednesday
Thanks again..