Inlay Sucks

At some point along the way I decided that I was going to make this one fretless, but that I would inlay fret markers so when you're playing it you have some idea of where to put your fingers or stop your slide. I have a nifty router and a tiny router bit to cut the grooves and I have left over ebony that I can cut down and fill the grooves with, right? Seemed like a good idea at the time. The fingerboard is red oak. I've been wanting to try a red oak fingerboard for quite a while. Well, it's got hard and soft spots that the router doesn't like at all. That's a pretty minor difficulty, though. I just went slow and kept it tight to the fence and I got through it well enough. Then came the time to cut the ebony into one eighth inch wide strips that I can glue into the grooves. That's a lot easier to say than it is to do, let me tell you. I won't be in a hurry to inlay on another instrument in the future unless I can come up with a much easier way to cut the inlay material. Once the remaining eight fret markers are placed I'll cut the fingerboard to the appropriate taper and sand the fret markers down until they're flush with the fingerboard surface.