Just thought I'd share a newly carved guitar neck. The front of this neck face plate has a beautiful piece of Cocobolo...but the back was terrible bland. So I carved it up. The small scrolling, carve design on the back of the peghead was topped off with stippling from a 16P finish nail set. This leaves a interesting..almost fish scale or reptile look. I could actually see using this larger stippling to spice up a bland (uninteresting wood) back of the peghead (without a carved design) or even a determined small section of the heel to match peghead ...much like a gunsmith does areas of checkering on a gunstock.
I use a small round grinding bit on my flex shaft to cup out the end of the nail set so it leaves a nice round edge indention in the wood. I attach a round dowel handle to the nail set and use palm pressure to create the stippled effect. In soft woods, it only takes minimal pressure to do the stipple. In hard woods, you may need to slightly rock the nailset when applying pressure to get a good stipple. Also.....if you apply too much pressure and crush the wood fibers , the dome of your stipple can pop off leaving a circle stipple without the dome top. Use just enough pressure to do the stipple and no more. Practice on a scrap. Grain direction (for example) on a heel stipple will also change what pressure is necessary.
I usually use smaller nailsets for background stippling around my carving...but the larger stippling area and a simple carved design was good for a larger stipple.
The hand does get tired doing this.....especially with a small nail set on a large area and age is a factor.
Yes...I left room for the tuners to be mounted and not cover the carved area.
Happy Luthiering!!!!!
Kent