So, I ordered a set of roman numeral Mother-of-Pearl/Abalone vinyl inlay decals from Creative Cuts. When they arrived, I sanded the fingerboard, placed the inlays, let them set and masked off the rest of the neck.
When I started the project, I was using Minwax Clear Gloss spray-on finish. The first thing I did was put on far too-thick coats, which resulted in bubbles that didn't auto-level and severe gathering at the edges of the inlays.
After about 3 hours of sanding and backpedaling, I started applying much thinner coats, tack-sanding between them. After 24 coats and I can't even estimate how much sanding with 1500grit sandpaper and 0000 steel wool, I still had buzz at several frets on the A and D strings because the inlays (even sanded to their actual surface) were still raised above the rest of the fingerboard.
At this point, I decided to rethink my strategy. I headed to the hardware store and bought a can of brush-on Minwax Clear Gloss Polyurethane, a few foam brushes, an X-Acto knife, and some painters tape. I taped off the neck, again, and then went through the process of masking off each of the inlays. Once that was done, I put a fairly thick coat of poly down with a 2" foam brush, waited for it to level some, then smoothed/evened the finish out again with the 2" brush (pooling poly is easier to deal with after it's set for 20 minutes, you can get it to spread evenly and stay in place across a mildly radius'd surface).
About six hours later, I lightly sanded the entire fingerboard smooth with 0000 steel wool and applied another coat of poly, this one not quite as thick. Before it could dry too much, I pulled up the painters tape from the inlays, so I wouldn't have to fight with them once everything had dried. Once everything HAD dried, I did what I thought was enough sanding, put the axe back together, restrung it, and gave it a try. CATASTROPHE. The exact same buzz was present that I experienced earlier. I was just about to rip the decals off altogether and call it quits, when my friend Samantha talked me into doing a little more sanding.
I'm not sure about a little more sanding... ...I think I sanded for 2-3 hours with 1500grit sandpaper and 0000 steel wool (then another 40 minutes buffing with a silk shirt), but it worked! The guitar now looks and sounds absolutely amazing! Once the strings are tuned up properly there is no buzz at all, and the tone is warm, rich, and full of 'mwah'.
There's a lot of talk on talkbass.com about using an Epoxy system over Polyurethane because it dries much harder. I opted for polyurethane specifically because it dries a little softer. I was hoping that the slightly softer fingerboard would add some warmth and 'mwah', since the fingerboard was plastic and sounded like plastic (not that it was a bad sound..Quite the contrary, it sounded pretty good, especially when the gloss was sanded off). The poly had the desired effect, and the tones are much fuller and richer now than they were before I started this project.
I'm very pleased with how this phase of the project has turned out, and I can't wait to start on the custom pickguard :)
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