custom Rainbow pickguard

i just finished making a custom pickguard for a Rainbow guitar.
made with cocobolo wood, hand cut and shaped abalone shell for the inlay, black CA glue from stew-mac, finished with several coats of lacquer

Really like the logo, particularly with the black surround, great work

Nice!! 

this is the first time i have tried something like this. i would give it about an 8 out of 10 for success.

the cocobolo was a piece of scrap from the waste bin at the exotic wood store. a relative of rosewood, it was quite easy to shape and finish. cocobolo looks great even with no finish. sanding to 600gt gives the surface a very nice natural shine. i used a dremel tool to make the cavity for the inlay, and a small chisel to flatten the bottom and edges.

the abalone was relatively easy to work with needle files. i purchased a 1oz. package of scrap pieces of shell, all different sizes and shapes, most pieces no bigger than 1 inch across at largest dimension. it polishes up nicely with some wet sanding at 600 grit.

the CA glue is difficult to work with. easy to put in place with a 'whip tip', but it shrinks a lot. i added many layers to try to fill in the gaps but it always shrunk up and was not level with the top of the abalone. that is why i chose to finish it off with lacquer. that filled up the last bit of the outline and it feels mostly pretty smooth now.

with some practice i could do better with the accuracy of the cut-out in the wood. i need to find something better to fill in the edges to a level surface. i would like to be able to make an inlay without a finish over the top, like on a typical rosewood fingerboard.

i liked this project because it was a no-risk experiment.
more inlay experiments to come.

Great work Mike. I admire your ability to jump in and do this sort of work. You and Steve (DimIV Addict) should go into the custom inlay business together, you both have the passion and talent.

We once had a limited edition Taylor at the shop made of cocobolo. It was spectacular. Sounded good too!