Headstock design

I'm going to take a break from the binding work. The binding problems took a lot of time and mental energy and I could use a change of focus. Working on the aesthetics is a good creative outlet. I've been playing with headstock design for a little while. I make up a bunch of paper headstock templates, soliciting ideas from those around me. We even recruited the kids to take headstock blanks and draw in their ideas. Since I want to cut my own shell and do all the inlay work myself, I want a simple, yet elegant design. This weekend I was looking at some earrings that Sarah had bought as a gift to a relative, and was stuck by an art-deco'ish idea. I replicated the basic shape in a drawing program and printed out various samples to play with. Sarah came up with an interesting arrangement and so far this is my favorite. You can see it in the mock-up photo. It consists of three geometric figures, repeated in a fan-like arrangement, over a single small square "dot". Each figure is made up of two puzzle-like pieces, one of abalone and one of mop.

I spent some time cutting out one figure and working on matching the mop with the abalone pieces. I like the design even better, now that I can see it in real shell pieces.

Challenge: How to get the best fit of two pieces of shell. Although I'm generally pleased with my pieces, they do not match perfectly when put together. I've read about a technique for getting a good match. The idea is that you take both shell pieces and glue them back to back with the full pattern glued on top. By cutting both pieces of shell at once, you have (in theory) a superior match between the pieces. I have prepared a sample like this will be cutting it next. You can see it in the photo, on top of the shell cutting apparatus.

The second photo shows a black paper mock up of the headstock, with the design arranged. some of the pieces are still in white paper but the central piece is the which I cut today, as well as a small dot. The shell looks beautiful but will be much more striking once it's polished. These are still all practice pieces before trying to go for the real thing.

The plan now is to cut one more figure and then start practicing routing a cavity for the inlay on some scrap piece.