Peghead work and back binding

Yesterday I only had about an hour of free time to work on the SJ so I spent that time getting the back binding glued up and taped. I didn't get any pictures as I was in a hurry. Today I took the tape off to look at the binding job and I was very happy with the outcome. I scraped and did some sanding to check for gaps, and there were none. This is the first guitar that I had no gaps in the bindings at all. I still have a bit of sanding to do to get all the glue off but it looks pretty nice. I decided to get to work on the peg head inlay. I had already cut the deer head shape out of abalone last week, so all I needed to do was route out the recess. That was fairly uneventful with one small exception where I bumped the dremel and accidentally cut outside the inlay pocket. Fortunately this was easily filled with ebony dust. Once the inlay was finished I decided that I wanted to do a white 'frame' around the peg head. I used black and maple binding strips for this. First I routed a thin channel along the edge of the peg head, then glued the strips around the perimeter. It really wasn't too terribly difficult to do, but the mitered corners were a pain in the neck to get together. It turned out pretty well, but if you look at the miters really closely, they aren't perfect. From any distance at all though they look great. All in all, I think it looks good and it ties in with the B/W/B perfling I did on the top.

This is what the back looks like with the two box elder inlays and the binding. If you click the picture to get the full sized one, you can see the upper inlay a little better. I scraped and sanded after this picture was taken.

This is the inlay scribe lines. I used the same method as I did with the fingerboard inlays to make the scribes.

I routed out the bulk of the inlay with a 1/16" downcut spiral bit.

I cleaned the rest out with a 1/32" bit, and an exacto knife. Note the small ding just above the nose of the deer head cut. That is where I slipped with the router.

The inlay glued in with ebony dust and CA glue.

After a bit of sanding, it looks great! That ebony is some great stuff, it hides the gaps really well.

The peg head after I routed the edges for the binding frame.

And here it is after I had all the bindings glued up.

Here is a close up of my miters. I clearly need some practice with them!

And the nut edge miters. They turned out a little nicer. I still have some cleanup to do but I won't do that until it is ready for finish sanding.