So I made some inlays instead of buying them. 1) It saved probably $100 or so, 2) I love doing this sort of thing, 3) it's just really cool to be able to say "I made the inlays too".

The higher end BC Rich mockingbirds have cloud inlays. I stole this design from a guy who does REALLY nice inlay work. I thought it was a nice variation on the clouds.

The body of the clouds are maple. The sun & rays are canarywood. I tried to use the darker orange & red streaks to my advantage when doing the rays. The grain on the maple is really tight, so the color is pretty uniform.



With the top beveled, I was finally able to put the tiger-eye burst on the top. This is a pic with the first sealer coat on it. The sides are being treated with a faux-binding effect. The sapele base is being dyed black.

My Day

Happy birthday to me!

Mockingbird progress

It's been a while since I posted any progress on this bad boy. It's been sitting in limbo for a while, waiting for time-consuming things to happen. Primarily, I had to finish up some Christmas projects. Good thing I'm in no rush.

The neck is finalized as paduk. I got lucky at the woodcarvers show last month and picked up a nice long paduk board with some sapwood along one side. A lot of woodworkers wouldn't want to combine heartwood and sapwood, but in this case it will just add something to the beauty of the neck.



The fretboard is now ebony. I landed a 3-pack of slotted Martin factory seconds for around $15-$20 shipped. I got another ebony blank that had some holes drilled all the way through for free. I'm using the blank to beef out the width of the Martin boards.

The inlays will still be clouds with the sun & moon. The clouds will be maple, and everything else will be canarywood. They're still going to be made with by beloved scrollsaw.

The body is glued up and routed to shape. It now has a 3A flamed maple top. I'm going to bevel it like BC Rich does theirs. Since the top is getting a tiger-eye burst and the edges of the top are pretty squared off, I'll use the undyed maple edges to give it a faux binging. To match this, the headstock, but not the neck, is being bound in cream.

still a geek.....

scroll saw + thin stock + guitar obsession = 20 unique Christmas tree ornaments

deck the frikin' halls!