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Hello,

I am getting ready to spray this guitar everything turned out nice except this head stock inlay.
Its ebony and the problem is the lines on the edges are sort of blurry, smudged or undefined.
its also got some pits in the middle that ended up with walnut dust so there are speckles or somthing.
Im not sure what to do to clean it up. Maybe there is a marker or something that I can draw on
that wont leech into the finnish or should I redo it all together.

Any Thoughts?

Photo's pretty blurry, hard to see how 'obvious' the errors are. I've seen amazing amounts of fill from some highly respected builders, so you might not have any reason to beat yourself up, or it might be easily fixable. Can you get a sharp shot?

_________________
Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Iphone camera is all I have available at the moment.
I think that I used black CA glue the cavity is the outline Its some of my first inlay work
so I wasn't thinking of all aspects. had I used a brown filler I think it would have been much cleaner.

Wipe it down with Naphtha. That will show you more of the finished look. It just might--also--pull some of the Walnut dust out of the Ebony pores, if that's some of your problem.
(Or, Ebony dust out of Walnut pores.)
Anyway, that should give you a lot of information without actually committing yourself one way or another.
And hopefully you'll be able to proceed with the spraying.
And yes, a black fine tip marker can do wonders for an Ebony inlay.
Best of luck,

Steve

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Sweet I didnt even think of wiping it down to see the look and the marker is good news to.
Im to to try that tomorrow sucks not having my shop at my house.

Thanks for the Help ill keep you posted

Good deal... let's hope we can put a smile on that avatar!

Steve

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Don't worry about it too much. A lot of those 'flaws' will be much less obvious once you have the finish applied.
The lower inlay will have strings across it, so that will draw attention from any minor defects.

If you are spraying, you have an air gun available? Just blow the lighter-colored dust out of the ebony. Be careful with marker touchups, as they can bleed under the finish if it is not 'dusted on'.
You could also add a bit of color to your lacquer to 'tone down' any differences a bit (aka instant vintage look).


Just keep 'pushing on'!

Cheers
John

Its been a long time but I wanted to post the fix I did for this!

Nice save!

Wes, you will notice a lot of ebony or dark wood for peghead veneers...there's a reason for that. Light woods pegheads are not easy to inlay.