Inlaying a finished or existing peghead

There are times when adding inlay to a plain headstock will liven up the decor of a banjo.  The owner of this RB-1 reissue wanted to do just that.  The existing inlay is taking up the center point of the headstock and I want to take that into consideration when I select the location for routing out the cavities for the new inlays.  The biggest reason is that we will have a lot of filler in the area where the old inlay will have to be removed and we want to take up as much of that space as possible in order to make it as invisible as possible.  For this reason, I have shifted the inlay down toward the headstock further than it would have been traditionally. 

To accomplish this I have a drawing of the inlay that is the same as the inlays and I lay the drawing on top of the headstock, center it and tape it down.

Click on the photos for a larger view.

With an X-Acto knife and a brand new blade, I scribe the outline of the inlay directly into the finish of the banjo.  For this reason I do not need anything to highlight the markings as you can see from the photos below.

   In the photo above, middle, you can see that Gibson's original inlay was not exactly centered.  This isn't  bad thing, though.  It probably has more to do with the fact that the inlay is already installed into the headstock overlay before the banjo's headstock shape is cut.  Mine is right on the centerline, though.  The final shot above is after the cavities for receiving the inlay is cut.  See how much of the old inlay space I used up?

To Be Continued