Body inlay and gluing in the neck, oh, and a bit of color

OK, so my task for the day (two weeks ago) was to put these inlays onto the green Celtic telecaster. Seems simple enough right? Well, the Celtic knot rosette is actually made up of a couple hundred little pieces that go together in a circle and the Telecaster is not a circle. I initially used super glue to glue all the pieces together, then I soaked it in water to get it off the paper backing. The next step was to break it apart into manageable sized pieces so I could fit them on the Telecaster body. the wolf is to go in the "upper bout" area of the body.

Well, I started piecing it out around the body, to see how it would look, but then I decided I should probably start inlaying the pieces as I go along because it will be difficult to get it all the way around and then take them all off to route the cavities and get them all in the right place again. The next several pictures are just showing the progress as I go around the body. The wolf is not inlaid yet, I just have it pictured to show how it will look. I have it positioned so that the wolf head looks normal if it is standing up or in the playing position.

I did not go all the way around the body with the inlay as the pickguard will cover it up anyway. Here is a picture with the pickguard on.

Now to another project. I decided to glue the neck onto the semi-hollowbody Les Paul, but I figured that I should probably drill the holes for the tuners first as it would be difficult to position the headstock onto the drill press with all the added weight of the body at the end of the neck.

Here is the neck in the pocket and then a shot of it being glued in place.

Well, I thought I would go ahead and start adding some color to the bodies (only the two without a sunburst) since I did not have to have the spray booth set up to do that. The green is about the right shade, but I will have to sand down the amber to make it less orange and also to give it more definition to the figure. On the green body, I had to go around with a small paint brush and paint on some sanding sealer to the binding so it would not absorb the dye. I then brushed it on with a foam brush. On the amber Telecaster, I did not have to worry about that as the koa binding is already darker, so it still provides contrast with the dyed maple.

Here is a shot of the green Tele with the pickguard and wolf inlay back on to show what it will look like.

Well, I have actually done more work the last couple days, but I forgot my camera. There is not a whole lot I would have taken pictures of anyway, but I did some more neck shaping, sanding and filling in some spots with wood putty. Also, I ordered the pickups from Seymour Duncan last week and I should be getting them in the next few weeks. I am hoping to have the majority of the finishing done this month so I can wire them up and test drive them for a while before I have to get them delivered to the customers. I hope this has been interesting for you all. Have a good week and I'll try to get more updates next week.

Aaron