Something I've been working on.

[Allen]

I made a concert with a similar design to this a couple of years ago, and really wanted to do another. But it will be 3 this time around in the next batch of instruments. One in Curly Honduran is a commission, the others two are Brazilian Mahogany and Quilted Maple and are spec instruments.

I'm calling it my Empire Design.

[FrankenWashie]

That is gorgeous. Absolutley wonderful stuff, thank you for sharing.

[Mark McLean]

Beautiful Allen. I am interested to see how you are going to carry that theme in other parts of the design. Will there be an empire-style rosette or headstock?

[Allen]

So am I.

Headstock will be the same shape. Got to keep the brand image. But the rest I'm working out as I go.

[Bruce McC]

Lovely style and detail Allen. Two questions if I may, is the black white black inlay
a stock product or do you make it yourself and are the channels cut by CNC?

[Allen]

I'ts black/maple/black purfling that I buy in bulk from Gurian Instruments out of Seattle.

The first one I did a couple of years ago was on my milling machine. These ones were cut on my CNC. Actually more or less the first thing I did other than machine up some locating holes for a spoil board and making some jigs.

You could do the same thing with fences, lot's of pencil layout lines, and a laminate trimmer or Dremel, but I don't like Dremel's for precise work.

To get the pattern to work out, you need to plan what's going to get inlaid first. Get it glued and dry before moving onto the next part. It's also one of the very few details that I use CA glue on. The first instrument I did I used HHG and the board swelled up so much with the extra moisture in so many lines made the entire ordeal a complete pain in the arse.

[FrankenWashie]

I am just starting to play in this realm, so I am in no way ready to tackle acoustics, let alone fine Inlay work like that, but some of the tips and tricks you guys are sharing is great stuff to know and really interesting for future reference.

IN recreating that pattern on the headstock, do you just scale down or do you rework the design in an altered form?

[Allen]

My headstock shape is a modified Clam Shell pattern that I'll be sticking with. You can see various examples in the gallery.

I don't have any plans for inlay on the headstocks at this point.

[Bruce McC]

Thanks for the detailed response Allen. I'll stick to doing binding and purfling on the edges, that gives me enough stress.