#inlayporn

The Petillo WAVE archtop guitar #0003 with our classic Petillo POINT body design and pickguard shape. The pickguard took me three full days to make/finish mount the old DeArmond pickup to the string spacing location. The body is made of German flame maple grain dyed a soft blue. This instrument is carved in the Italian style of violin/guitar making taught to my Father (Dr. Phil Petillo) by the D'ANGELICO family in the early sixties and later passed onto me. The F holes are framed in ebony and the perimeter purfling is 327 pieces of Paua abalone sea shell with an outer layer of Wenge binding. Also, check out the antique DeArmond 1100 archtop jazz guitar pickup restoration. The thin metal casting frame and pickup pole pieces were plated nickel. Underneath the metal casing was a foggy clear plastic spacer. I wanted to match the guitars hardware and inlay work by making a new spacer out of rare one piece Paua abalone sea shell. I finally completed the guitar!

Check out the restoration on this Hungarian Oud. I had to re-cut the scroll ribbon inlay at the end of the instrument and reglue the bridge. The second pic shows how I used my shop ceiling to glue the bridge back. It's a beautiful instrument.

This was a project for GRASSbuilt (GB) company that was an eye opener for me when it comes to safety of our environment and also the economic growth of our great country. GRASSbuilt has a unique patented process of layering bamboo in a non-toxic resin to form pieces of any size. To test the material I made a custom GRASSbuilt Ethos Bass model with a horizontal blue transitional color called Beach Blue Burst. The idea was to make the natural golden bamboo look like sand on a beach and the ocean tide waters washing up on the wood. GRASSbuilt being a environmental friendly company wants to bring notice to the fight of protecting the environment in all its aspects but with this bass theme it focuses on our oceans and their beauty. The electronic back cover is made of rare Paua abalone to match the inlay dots in the Indian rosewood 34" fingerboard scale. The neck is made of German flame maple with a reverse Fender headstock shape. The stain on the neck is a hand rubbed seaweed satin. I choose to make the neck color seaweed to match the ocean theme of the body. The front of the headstock has the horizontal transition ocean blue burst as the body. The Ethos logo and gear inlay work is made of gold and silver foil. I choose these foils based on the the vintage style look of old Fender instruments. The gears are all different sizes with a silver wrench seen in the piece. Also to stay in the gear theme I hand cut gold and silver gears and incorporated them into the volume and tone knobs on the bass, the external preamp Bamboo Boost Box I made with a rare abalone top and the string tree on the headstock shows a brass gear on top as well. The symbolism of the gears and wrench seen on the headstock face is to show the hands on engineering complexity that GRASSbuilt has to offer the world when it comes to innovation with their products. Check out their website: http://www.grassbuilt.com/

The Petillo Sea Goddess Guitar! 13 species of sea shell, stone and wood inlay with Petillo Triangle Frets aka The Petillo Precision Fret. The body is a Tele style double cutaway shape. The German quilted maple is stained a five tone red transition color burst. The nautical flag marquetry strip inlay was tough to make on the back of the body. The headstock is in the shape of a lighthouse with a hand carved mother of pearl compass star in a gold bezel. Check out all TEN pics!

Go to sleep little Twilight Purple Blue WAVE headstock inlay #0003. One day soon you will be a guitar and make someone very happy.

The Petillo Sea Goddess Guitar! 13 different species of sea shell, stone and wood with 24k gold dust shadows in the wave curls. This was made for musician and collector of art Gene Deetz.

I made this necklace out of abalone sea shell chips. After I make inlays or jewelry out of sea shells I have a lot of scrap left over and I wanted to use it and finally found a way. This process of encasing sea shell chips in epoxy resin can be used for guitar inlays or binding trim designs. Check out the TWO pics!

A Gust of Wind inlay! The design is made of Paua abalone, sterling silver, pink ivory and white mother of pearl. The fingerboard it's inlaid into is made of Nigerian ebony. Also, check out the Petillo Precision Fret aka Triangle Frets!