I need some advice on a neck painting project

[RU36]

I have a scalloped ebony fret board with no inlays on a maple neck.

It may seem crazy but I want to paint the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th 12th etc etc completely white.
And leave the unmarked frets just stained black ebony.

This is my first neck finishing project ever so I still have alot of questions

My first question is what kind of white paint should I use?
Enamel? lacquer?

The neck is being shipped unfinished.
This was what I had planed to do, let me know if its a bad idea.
1) Tape off the frets and the rest of the neck
2) One light coat of zinsser shellac to seal the frets that are about to be white
3) paint those frets white with Enamel? lacquer?
4) one or two coats of deft clear lacquer on the painted frets to seal them (is it even necessary?)
5) Untape the neck and stain the ebony frets to get em nice and dark
6) Tape the face of the fretboard and the nut
7) Spray the whole thing with one coat of zinsser shellac to seal all the maple ( i also kinda like how it tints it a bit)
8) then about a can or two of the deft clear gloss lacquer to finish it
9) then untape and hand polish it and play the hell out of it

I am open to any tips and suggestions.
I spent about $400 on the neck so If I am about to screw it up please let me know!
Thanks in advance for your help

 

[RU36]

OK
Tried the above mentioned on another neck and all the paint just spreads and turns to swiss cheese?
Its like ebony does not want to be painted I don't know.

The main reason I need the big stupid inlays is becuase this is going to be on a live guitar and I sing, and play lead and have to go back and forth on the fret board all night long.
The other problem is we have a crazy laser show and its REALLY HARD to see on stage.
I might just put some white Vinyl sticker material on the inlays.

I know it seems kind of lame but this is a working guitar and functionality is they key here.
I have plenty of "pretty"guitars.
But they suck for playing when your half blind from strobe lights and lasers  :icon_scratch:

 

[tfarny]

painting your own inlays is probably not going to work - Ebony is probably a bad surface to paint, plus you have the strings and fingers scraping it off right away. How about using bright orange or day-glo stickers on the side of the fretboard over top of the little marker dots, instead of covering your ebony board? You could, I dunno, cut up some reflective tape meant for a bicycle into little strips. I would do that, and maybe just have 5, 9, 12, and 15 marked or something. It might also help a tendency to hunch over the guitar looking at the fretboad, you can just look at the side dots.

Another alternative is to have a professional actually make you some real fretboard inlays, though of course you'd be without your neck for a while. Check custominlay.com, I'm sure there are others too.

Oh, I just realized you are ordering this neck new, not fixing up an old neck. Just get block pearl inlays!

 

[Finch]

go to your art supply store and buy some stuff called Gesso, its a sandable, paintable primer that should adhere to just about any surface, thats how i did the artwork for my Bass im working on, masked off my design and just laid on a few layers of the gesso, then if you dont like the color you can paint anything you like on top of it, and it wont react negatively to clear coating

 

[MUYFUE]

I tried something similar on one of my guitars back in the day...it didn't turn out so pretty...it worked, though.
It was a maple neck that I added flames to and then put clear over it.
Farny's right. As expected it wore off and now is just a gooey mess that needs to be removed entirely.

So did you already buy it or is it being made?
If it's still being made, get the block inlays!
Anyway, I'd also check out Billy Gibbons guitars. He has tons of 'em and lots have painted designs on the fretboard. I'm sure there is lots of good info out there on google on how this was done.

 

[RU36]

I wanted to get block inlays but they are not available on scalloped necks.
What I ended up doing is getting some vinyl like the stuff they use for racing stripes on cars.
My fingers never touch it because of the scalloped neck and it looks pretty cool.
I will post pics shortly

 

[Steve_Karl]

Here's how my friend ( the violin teacher ) does it. They're stick ons.

 

[Keyser Soze]

Ebony can be a nightmare to paint/finish.  It is dense and oily.  My only experiences have been with ebony end caps on rifle stocks, and oil based poly; even then the ebony needed to be stripped with acetone in order to get good adhesion.

Gesso is not a bad option, but is also not very durable (it is specifically made to be sanded.)  Another option would be a wipe down with a volatile solvent (eg. acetone/lacquer thinner), an undercoat of shellac, followed by paint.  On the plus side this would also be easily repairable or reversible.