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Bridge view of Pam's OM build #3. Its East Indian Rosewood. I picked this up from a vendor at the GAL convention in Tacoma , Wa. I liked the shape and will probably use this shape as the basis for my own design once I start making my own bridges. Brige pins are ebony wood with MOP white dot. Saddle is bone and polished to gloss.
Peg head view of SJ 200 showing the nice Gibson traditional tuners and pearloid tuner buttons. THe neck is curly maple (tiger maple) and ebony lamanate.
Neck and body joint view showing curly maple binding on side, paua abalone purfling on front face, sextagon fret inlays. The fret wire was supposed to be gold plated , but ended up nickle. I went to far on the leveling of the frets and had to pull them all and re-fret the board. I couldn't find a gold fret wire with a wide enough tang to fit the frets after pulling the first set out.
SJ front body view showing tortise pick guard , mustach bridge with white MOP inlays and bone saddle, check out the bridge pegs
Bridge view of basic OM build #4. Basic Martin style belly bridge of ebony purchased from LMI. Black plastic with white dot bridge pegs. Bone saddle 3/32
Front body view of number 6 build - basic SJ200. Same mustache bridge as deluxe SJ200 build (#5). I hand cut and shaped the pickguard on this one. I beveled the edges of the pick guard as well. Also shows the cloud inlays on the fret board.
front, body view of SJ200 showing tortise pickguard, east indian rosewood mustache shaped bridge with white MOP inlays, and paua abalone rosette trim
close up of finger board inlay detail. The set was purchased as "art deco" style. Each fret inlay is several pieces of white MOP or pauo abalone shaped to form the pattern. Each fret's inlay is a differnt size. The inlay's come on glued to a piece of cardboard and must be soaked in water to release the pieces from the cardboard. The pieces are reassembled on a piece of scotch tape then super glued to form one solid piece. The inlay is then layed on the finger baord and traced , then a pocket , following the traced lines is routed out of the fingerboard for the inlay to be placed in a glued to the fingerboard.
The ablone and MOP rose inlay I used on Pam's OM. It's many pieces of shell put together to form a rose. This is how it was shipped. This was soaked in water overnight to release the pieces from the cardboard backing and then re-pieced together and on several pieces of scotch tape and then glued with super glue. The glued up inlay is then traced on to the peghead and a pocket is routed out of the peghead with a dremil tool with a very small thin spirial down cut bit.
Detail view of clould fret board inlays on basic SJ200 build. The inlays were purchased from a supplier of abalone shell and are laser cut. They are much nicer and uniform in shape than I could ever do by hand with my skill. Many luthiers will buy their inlays rather than cut them. Some even send out their fingerboards to inlay specialists for really unique or special inlays. Cutting pearl and abalone takes much skill and patience. I tried it for my first guitar and decided I'd buy inlays. I believe that with time , I would get better , but for now I want to concentrate on building great sounding and easy playing guitars. I'll work on the arty..ish stuff later when I am more comfortable with all aspects of the construction.