Tony's Coranado style

So thought I would have a crack at doing a coloured inlay on the headstock. So printed off in word and superglued on as a template. Probably not what I would do next time, the paper didn't cut clean and sort of frayed and actually made it a bit harder to see what was going on.
Second photo shows the "Oh my god, what have I done" stage, before I managed to clean it up a fair bit and is now about 85% complete with just needing to round off some of the edges to make it neater.

If you stand 20 feet away, close one eye and poke yourself with a stick in the other, I reckon its pretty well bang on the stencil.

So now to experiment with some colortone and epoxy to see if I can make up a decent colour mix and will practice on some scrap for filling and how it sands back.

Hope Barry likes it.

What did you use to cut the lettering out with - dremel, chisel, ??? Looks pretty darn good if you free-handed it.

Hi Peter with a Dremel with a router base , but didn't have a small enough router bit so did it with a bur. Might have to invest in some proper inlay bits.

Double (at least) the expected drying time of your epoxy, just to be safe. The inside of fills like that can stay soft for days even though the surface is rock hard. Also, in my experiments I found the epoxy contracts way more than you expect when it hardens, so you can't just fill level with the surface or you'll get a dip. It needs to be mounded over the fill area and then sanded down level.

I used black powdered pigments in my tests, it went really black with just an infinitesimal amount.


Edit: Don't let DB see you using epoxy ;)

If at first you dont succeed - use veneer.

Sanded back the headstock after applying the epoxy and letting dry for several weeks. Not entirely happy with the result as looks pretty rough. May look at putting on a veneer to cover it. But lesson learnt -You'll never know unless you have a go I suppose. Have ordered some proper inlay routing bits for the Ozito, for the next guitar.

I love seeing these Experiments because I know in the next iteration of this process we are going to see a builder pull off something truly Schmick. Keep at it mate.
Are you using the Stew Mac thing as a router base or a specific Dremel fitting?

Thanks FW, have the stemac base but was using burring bits so a lot a lot of hand clean up of the routes. Next one will be on the money.

Managed to get a first coat of TO on the body. Liking the way the colour is coming up.

Fair few coats in now and looking at what hardware to fit. Originally though that silver would match the colour over gold due to the shade of blue, but thinking the gold sets it off more. Few more coats of TO and think the body will be ready to polish and start assembling.

The gold works.