Inlaying a logo?

[pour bleeding me]

i want to put an ESP logo on my headstock...but i was thinking about maybe trying to inlay it...like the gibson on some gibson guitars...how difficult would this be? do i need alot of tools to do so? and if i do do this...how can i paint the rest of the headstock black? because i want an inlay and the headstock black. thanks

[Brian]

You pretty much do it the same way as inlaying a fret board only leave the inlay a little higher so that you can coat the headstock with paint and then clean it off the top of the inlay, That's the basic idea anyway

[daveq]

Will this be in a maple or darker wood? If it is maple - you will need some practice first. Are you repairing an ESP guitar or do you just like the logo?

Anyway, I think the ESP logo would be challenging to do using something like MOP or abalone due to the small pieces (like in the E). Are you going to make each letter from multiple pieces or are you using some other material?

[daveq]

Now that I look at the logo more closely, maybe it won't be so hard to do with MOP? You'll just need to find a way to hold the corner pieces down in the E when cutting.

Do you have much experience doing inlay? The only thing that would make me nervous about doing that is the possibility of messing up the neck if you found out you just couldn't do it right.

I was thinking about doing something similar (not ESP) but instead of inlaying into the headstock directly, inlay into another piece of wood (darker than the maple) and then inlay that piece into the neck. The darker piece would be a simple shape like an oval or something like that. If something goes wrong, I can adjust the wood instead of having to re-inlay if you know what I mean.