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I am looking at the idea of building a guitar for a fund raiser....In St Johns (Newfoundland) they are building a place called" Daffodil House". Its is a place where cancer patients can go and live while undergoing cancer treatments. The building is being built completely on donations and fundraisers....I am toying with the idea of building an OM and donating it to the cause. I want to somehow put an inlay of Daffodils in the lower bout on the trebel side.....Can someone give me some idea how to go about this inlay....Should I try and get a decal? Will a wood inlay affect the sound....Any advice will be greatly helpful....Larry

Larry, sounds like a good idea.

My only suggestion (as I've not inlayed into soft wood before) is to repost this with a better subject topic, something with "inlay on spruce - how do you do it" or something like that. You'll get better responses.

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Good for you Larry! I'm just finishing up a fundraiser guitar for a single mom of 6 whose hubby was killed in a hit & run drunk driver incident. He was volunteering for an extra (late night) shift in the hospital across the street. He was on the way home, only got 1/2 mile down the road. Tragic.

I can identify with your project. Especially as my next door neighbor of 5 years just died at home yesterday of cancer.

An inlay on the guitar top should not present any real problems. After all, rosettes are inlays.
You'll be in the area of relatively stiff wood being next to the edge of the lower bout (over the kerfed lining) and probably near or right above the terminus of the treble X brace leg. You might want to back up the area with a cleat of top wood inside on the top, but if you are using relatively thin veneers, say .030 or less, I doubt you would need a backing. If you use colored wood veneers, make sure the color goes all the way through and take care in final level sanding to not get any colored sanding dust into the top wood. A good scraper would be the "weapon of choice" in that instance to avoid generating sanding dust.
Another thought is to find an artist in the area that would like to go in with you and have them paint on the daffodils after the sealer coat but prior to top finish (lacquer, catalized material or whatever). I've seen this done with stunning results. You will need to load up the area with the final topcoat(s) and take care not to sand through any of them during the finish process.

Good luck and post a photo of your finished guitar.

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