Day 56. Haven't done much for a few days as the weather is too cold to spray, so I've spent a bit of time looking at the headstock.
The general principle of using a thin layer of MOP (mother-of-pearl) and then building up the paint to match its level worked well. What didn't work so well was trying to inscribe lines into the MOP that would fill up with paint, and creating a false impression of more pieces in the design. I've seen other people do it, but this first time, it didn't work for me. Tried needle files, then tried a Dremel with an engraving bit, but without a firm support, the bit followed the contours of the MOP. The MOP has also been rubbed down so that it's more translucent, and you can now see the pencil line I drew on the headstock underneath it so that I lined it up correctly. D'oh!
Here's a slightly closer view of the MOP 'inlay'. It was all done in rather a hurry, but the onset of the cold weather, precluding the ability to spray all the clear coats on the body, means that I now have plenty of time to work on the headstock. I only used some large grit paper when sanding it back, hence the scratches on the paint, as by this point I knew I wasn't going to keep it.
So this is all going to be taken back to bare wood and I'll start again, but now I'm more confident about what I'm doing, it's going to be a more complex inlay with multiple pieces. I may even attempt to cut out a thin outline to run around the edge of the headstock, in lieu of any binding.
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