dot on neck for Fender Statocaster 1963 with a rosewood neck

[Guy Hachez]

I have buy a statocaster 1963 with a rosewood fingerboard  and the previous owner have changed the dot on neck for an other dot in gold. After a contact with Stewart-MacDonald Technical advice

They tell me "the dot used by Fender on a rosewood fingerboard was a "clay"  dot. What is this material and if any have this thing in hand , please let me know. I would like to return this jewel

in is original condition.

HELP!

Best regards

Guy

[Grahame Myers]

This could interest you (Google is your friend :-) )
http://jimshine.com/claydots/clay_dots_and_other_fender_inlay.htm
What the were really made of is anybodies guess: I've read theories about real clay, linoleum, fiberboard etc, etc. Nobody seems to really know, not even Fender.
In the past I've used water.based filler putty for repair jobs, looks great! You could also use white plastic dots, and dirty them up with shoe polish, or dye them with strong coffee, or nicotine water (smells disgusting :-))

Grahame

[Russell Vance]

Allparts have clay dots.r.

[Pierre-Antoine Roiron]

Yep, I've used the allparts clay dots on a repair of a late 60s european bass. Quite convincing.

[Grahame Myers]

Wow, I didn't know that Allparts stock them, I could've saved myself a lot of work in the past. I must say though, the wood filler I used, from Alfred Clou in Germany, looked pretty convincing, and up until now no wear problems with it. It'll be interesting to see what the final costs of the dots are when I order them from Allparts in the USA, after the German customs have robbed me with 3.2% customs duty and 19% sales tax. And they even tax the shipping costs too... Welcome to Germany :-)

Grahame

[Pierre-Antoine Roiron]

Grahame, maybe you can see with Fred Guitar Parts in Toulouse (fredguitar.com). He is the French distributor for allparts, and makes nice prices for professional luthiers, because he only sells to pros. You can tell him I sent you.

[Grahame Myers]

Pierre-Antoine
Many thanks for the link: I've sent him an email, I hope he understands English, I can't speak French! Only English or German. I hope we can do business, I'm sick of getting ripped off by the German customs every time I order in the USA, or anywhere else outside of the EU, Grrrrr!! :-)

Grahame