Hi everyone

This is a question for advanced users: Below you see some pictures of carbon fibre resonator guitars built by the late luthier Alan Timmins:







Can anyone tell how these very nice inlays are done? A close up view would be very interesting but unfortunately I don't own any of these instruments - guesses are that only around 12 were made in total.

I think the silhouettes are cut from some kind of highly polished foil or very thin sheet metal but how are they built into the laminate? First I thought he might have applied a clear gelcoat to the mould and then put the pieces in before the fabric but I doubt this would work, I guess the surface of the gelcoat would have to have almost a mirror-like polish for that to work...

However if they were glued on after demoulding, how would it be possible to apply a top coat so thick that it completely fills between the inlays for polishing?

Regards
Martin

Not hard at all. I doubt they were applied in-mould before layup, I'd wager they are applied after the laminate is made. 

If so, would that be gelcoat that's applied over the stickers or something special? I planned on using GC50 gelcoat pigmented in black inside the mould because I'm not too confident of doing visible carbon right away but silver on black would be a killer effect also. Would GC50 (this time without pigment of course) also be suitable for such a top coat on top of the stickers?

Apart from a lot and lot of sanding this way it doesn't sound that difficult to do indeed. The danger I see is sanding off too much in one go before applying another coat if necessary which would ruin it all...