Today was all about headstocks.  I’m using peg tuners for the first time (all other uses I’ve used mini-tuners) and wanted a more elegant headstock design to reflect the smaller Concert and the tuners.  Came up with this design which Mark really liked and  made it into a template.  I’m not ready to create the headstock veneer just yet as Ill also be adding a hand-cut honu in white mother-of-pearl.

I picked up the inlay kit from Stew-Mac and have been waiting to use it ever since.  I really like adding some form of Hawaiian-themed embellishment to the headstock which, to date, have been done via pyrography. The process for creating inlay is actually straight-forward, if not really time-consuming!  After gluing a template onto the pearl stock, you “simply” cut out the inlay with a jeweler’s saw.  A few rough edges which I’ll clean up with sandpaper, but overall looks nice.  Mark would like a Koa headstock veneer so I’ll work on routing out and installing the inlay…tomorrow.