custom shop guitar issue

[baritone]

The new dent actually has a tiny slit/crack in the middle.

[chadd]

If it has two dings without ever making it to a rehearsal or gig, it's going to be beat to hell a year from now. I'd definitely call the local shop on the BS, they should be fixing their ding for free. The reality is that it's never going to be pristine and you'll always see some amount of imperfection on it somewhere. Appreciate it for what it is and represents.

[baritone]

I don't know much about working with ebony. What are these polkadots on the 1st 5 frets? Life keeps me quite busy here. There was no attempt to set the guitar up before shipping, & I finally sat down to restring & intonate this thing.

[GuitarStv]

No idea. I've never seen that on any of the ebony fretboards I've played. Usually they either have a nice grain pattern, or they have dyed the ebony jet black. Could just be some naturally darker/more oily parts of the wood.

[Mincer]

It could even be fungus spots in the wood. Or dye droplets fell on it. Even in lighter, streaky ebony, I've never seen something like that, but I don't have the experience with wood as some people do here.

[beaubrummels]

Looks like finger oils staining the wood to me, but I can't clearly tell if all the spots are the same thing. Another possibility might be if the wood piece had variance such that parts of the wood didn't take the stain or finish as well as other areas and it's either picking up dirt or fungus or something else.

[baritone]

On the bass side, they look like natural imperfections in the wood. On the treble side, they look like drops of dye slopped on there. I've never dirtied up a fretboard with finger oils before; this guitar I haven't played nearly enough to get it dirty. In either case, it doesn't affect sound or playability. I was pretty freaked out to find that the bridge is installed crooked, but I was able to intonate enough to compensate for that, so it still plays perfectly.