Inlays & Fret Markers    

Here is a Ebony Faced Headstock with the typical inlayed Logo in Abalone. The headstock also sports an Abalone Purfling and Rosewood Binding.

Another example of inlay, is the Signature Logo. Although John's standard logo is is typical of most guitars, this 12-string needed a little different approach, hence the signature logo. Also notice that this is left-handed guitar, an options offered at no additional cost.

With the Rising Pheonix made from gold mother of pearl, on this headstock, there was no room for the standard logo, so this headstock also got the signature logo.

These inlays in this guitar are part of the guitar with the Rising Pheonix headstock shown above. Here we can see another Rising Pheonix on the 12th fret, this time in Mother of Pearl. Also shown is the inlayed "flame" rosewood on maple rosette.

This headstock is as a red abalone vine with an abalone logo. A Madagascar Rosewood veneer is  used for the front along with koa bindings and abalone purflings. This guitar also has gold hand-engraved Waverly tuners .

Another option on the headstock is the slothead. Here shown with a vine of mother of pearl and abolone with the a gold mother of pearl logo. Also on this headstock are a set of 3-on-a-plate Waverly tuners.

Here is another example of a "different" 12th fret customer requested inlay. This one is done in mother of pearl.

Here is a Guitar made for Keith Knight and founder of Bear Claw Music. Here the Bear Claw logo was put on the 12-fret using mother of pearl. Keith is a great musician. check out his site.

John does the majority of his inlays with some sort of shell or wood. In this case this simple fretmarker was made up from some bloodwood that also matched other trim on the guitar.

This guitar had a fairly elaborate theme of inlay. Starting at the rosette, here is mother of pearl and abalone inlayed into a ebony with a couple of snakewood rings. Here the "Crown of Thorns" rosette's inner piece of snakewood "came off" and continued as a vine on the fretboard. The vine has abalone leaves for fret markers with the mother of pearl dove at the 12th fret. The olive branch is made from gold mother of pearl.

Another theme that carries from the rosette to the fretboard and continues on the headstock. The inlay in this case is made from gold and white mother of pearl. The rosette and fretmarkers in this case carry the butterfly and flower theme.

Let's just take a look at some fretboards.

Here a simple dot scheme was used for fretmarkers and it goes nicely with the abalone purfling.

Here is a vine with leaf for fret makers inlay. Here is a shot of the fretboard in processes. The inlays have been placed, but the fret stots will have to be "recut" where the inlay traveled through the slot. The vine in this case is made from koa and leaves are made from abalone

A shot of a diamond shapes used for fretboard makers.

Another Vine, this time a vine of thorns..