We're going with a matching African Padauk headstock overlay on this small jumbo. It will be my pillow top sculpted type. There are a lot of steps involved in putting this one together. The first challenge is due to the thickness of the overlay and the need to keep clearance for the strings between the tuners and the nut, the truss rod cover is inset;
The overlay is then carved and bound. The purfling laminates start going on at the same time;
In this case an additional black laminate goes on while the overlay is glued to the headstock;
Then the headstock profile is cut to fit:
So I have two purfling lines between the overlay and the headstock. The reason I do this is to keep things crisp looking. The white maple against the African Blackwood binding and a black line to separate the maple purfling line and the maple headstock;
In deference to the headstock overlay the back strap gets only the black line.
Of course, now that the headstock overlay has a black/maple purfling line in to keep consistency I'll need the black/maple lines under the fret board. I try to avoid purfling dead ends when I can.
Thanks for viewing!
Mark