Logo Inlay

I wanted to have an inlayed logo to add to the headstock. I was not quite clear how I would make an inlay but I knew the starting point was to come up with a design. I had given some thought to a brand name, and after much consideration, and given my playing abilities, the only fitting choice was Slouchtone.

I goofed around in Adobe Illustrator trying to imitate the Gibson and Epiphone logos but nothing really gelled. I found an automotive-style font called Magneto which seemed a good starting point. I made some minor modifications to the letters and gave the logo a slight arch (slouch - get it?) – close enough!

The Slouchtone artwork

I intended to carve the inlay out of a sheet of 1.5mm white pearloid plastic I had bought off eBay sometime before. After I determined the size of the logo should be about 2.25 inches I sized the artwork in Illustrator and printed it out. I glued the printed logo to the plastic and let it dry.

The printed logo laminated on to the plastic

Once dry, I started to carve out the logo. Using side-cutters, a razor saw, an X-acto knife, and several small files I made slow progress. After a couple hours work I had removed enough material to have only the most basic shape of the logo. This was the easy part! I would next need to cut out all those negative spaces inside and between the letters. 

Slow progress timing the plastic

Test fitting the logo on the headstock

After a lot of carving, only the basic outline
of the logo had been achieved

About this time I sent an image of my progress to my friend Roy. He replied, "why don't you laser-cut it?" Sure, I thought. I'll just give my friend Heinz Doofenshmirtz a call. He can fire up his Guitarlogo-Inator and then I'll be all set. Roy had a slightly better idea. He set me up with his friend Adrian who was not only an actual human, but also had unfettered access to a laser cutter without a chance of being thwarted by a platypus.

A few emails later, I was sending the vector artwork for the logo and the percoid plastic sheet off to Adrian. 

Polishing

I waited about a month for the lacquer to cure. It seemed that the run on the side of the guitar had taken care of itself. I found only the slightest trace of it after the paint had fully hardened. 

To start the polishing process I wet sanded with 400 grit sandpaper. I needed to get the bumpy orange peel surface smooth before I moved on to finer grit sandpaper. I sanded from the center toward the edge, and never over the edge. Sanding over the edges and corners would cause the sandpaper to remove too much clear coat and possibly rub through the paint.

The body after curing for a month

The back of the guitar before polishing

It was important to make sure the sandpaper did not get loaded up with paint particles. This could cause the paper to be less effective but also scratch the surface if larger pieces of grit got lodged between the guitar and the paper. I would frequently dip the paper in water and wipe it off on a towel, then rewet the paper before sanding.

Wet sanding using 400 grit

After a fair amount of sanding I used a damp cloth to wipe off the slurry from the sanding to see if there were any shiny spots on the paint. If there were I would continue sanding.

The glossy spots meant more sanding needed to be done.

Something unexpected were bubble holes in the paint in the cutaway. It seemed that the thick coats of paint I had put on at the end of the painting process might have attached the earlier coats. Somehow bubbles had formed and drilled all the way through the clear coat. I would not be able to polish these out. 

The bubbles in the cutaway ate down to the wood.

After the paint was leveled with the 400 grit, I moved on the finer grits. I used 600 and 800 wet and dry sandpaper, and then used 1600, 2400, 3200, and 12,000 grit sanding cloths. Every time I used a sanding block and lots of water.

After using the 12,000 grit cloth, I could see a hint of a shine but the guitar was still nowhere near glossy. To achieve the high-gloss I used Meguiar's Deep Gloss polish. I'm not sure if this was a pure rubbing compound without wax, but it was what I had at the time.

Wiping off the Meguiar's polish

I used a clean, damp shop rag to apply the Meguiar's. I then wiped it off with the clean dry cloth. The shine was dramatic. I applied a couple more coats of the polish and the body looked pretty good.

The high-gloss shine after using the car polish

I found a spot on the cutout horn where I had rubbed through. It either did not get enough lacquer, or received too much pressure when sanding. After I completed polishing, I carefully repainted this area and filled the bubbles in the cut out by using a small brush. The touch-ups would have to cure before I polished them.