Is It Possible? Inlay Idea...

[Bassisgreat]

Hey everybody, I've been kicking around an idea for an inlay and I thought I'd see what some folks here with experience (I have none) thought about the possibility of my concept.

It's going to be for a guitar, and one that probably won't see the light of day, as I'm a bassist . It's a tribute to one of my favorite bands, TOOL. On their Aenema album they had a special jewel case (which they've gotten progressively more artistic on with each subsequent album)

On this one, the front cover is made with plastic with tiny ridges that make for a cool "motion" effect in the specially drawn image behind it. You've probably seen this effect on some packaging, whether it was a movie, a cd or a paperback book even. They included a few pics that would work with this effect, and one of my faves is a cool looking eye. Here's a pic of the eye without any effect.

With the cover, it makes the iris of the eye scroll from one corner to the other. Neat effect.

What I was thinking of was cutting out the eye pic, cutting out an appropriately sized piece of the ridged cover and inlaying that. Now the question is how do I maintain the ridged surface in the inlay that is required for the effect I would want. Well, I figured I'd overlay a thin piece of clear acrylic. Now the problem is, how do I glue everything down and still maintain the cool effect, without it all just looking like a blurry mess? I'm worried that epoxy will affect the, uh, effect. Light needs to be able to refract off of the ridges, and this won't happen if it's covered in epoxy. I know this is possible, but I need to figure out how.

Any ideas?

[Bassisgreat]

Well, I have been pondering, and one solution that has popped into mind was to create an acrylic casing for the inlay, basically, inlay it into another piece of acrylic, then put a thin acrylic backing on that, only gluing around the edges, leaving the top and back surfaces of the art untouched by epoxy. It seems like a hassle, though. Any other ideas?

[Xanthus]

Ah, man, Tool CD cases are always a treat

I don't see why it couldn't be done in theory. I would be more worried about, once you get everything cut and fitted, is it being too thick to get the full effect, or too blurry as well. I'd print out a few Aenima eyes and have at some scrap wood.

Also, if this is going onto a guitar body, you're probably going to clear over it, no? I can see this working out better on an oiled guitar, just to save the worry of that extra thickness obscuring the art.

Now, I was under the impression that the picture itself was fragmented like the cover was...? I don't have this CD so I can't check, but I know on ELP's BSS cd (how's that for some chunky letters?) the picture and the cover were both choppy.

::EDIT::

Oh wow... 1000 posts. I've definitely been here too long

[Bassisgreat]

Yeah, the pic is also filled with thin horizontal lines to achieve the effect i want. I've held the cover under a half inch of clear acrylic and it still worked fine, so i'm not overly concerned about the thickness of the cover piece. I'm mostly concerned with how to keep glue from touching the top of the ridged jewel case material while still being secure. My copy of that disc is pretty worn out anyway, so if i have to buy a new one for the case, i won't be too upset.

[Xanthus]

Could you perhaps mount the picture and acrylic inside a drum of some sort, then put the drum into the guitar?

The guitar that brought this to mind was an airplane-themed Schecter guitar they used to have. It had some sort of pressure gauge or something, inlayed into the body and secured with a metal ring. It looked pretty cool. I dunno if this is within the bounds of your theme for the guitar, but figured I'd toss it out there.