What To Do?

[Balsanova]

I'm working on a Gibson 1936 EH150 replica project and I need some suggestions. I rescued a 1/8” thick piece of striped maple from the another builder who gave up on his project for the top. It had already been cut out and wasn't quite wide enough in the upper waist area for my Gibson pattern. So I patched in a couple of scrap pieces so it would have the correct outline. I was originally going to rout the top for white plastic binding as per the original but I'm having second thoughts about doing that. The top and bottom of the body is made from laminated aircraft plywood, which I had on hand. They are each approximately 3/8 “ thick. After I trimmed off the excess around the outer edge the plywood end grain looks quite nice by itself and simulates a bound guitar by itself. So, I'm thinking of doing a natural “blond” finish on this guitar and not rout it for plastic binding.. I would like to at least stain the top to pop out the grain of the maple and clear coat the rest of the guitar. I need suggestions how to hide the glue joints of the patches that I added to widen the top. I could possibly inlay something or I could have my artist daughter paint some thing over the patches. What to do???? I originally planed to do a tobacco brown sunburst finish which would have hid the patches.

attachment=1]Top2.JPG[/attachment]

Top1.JPG (573.59 KiB) Viewed 6523 times

[Balsanova]

I found some contrasting flame Spanish cedar (mahogany?) veneer and my wife suggested doing this inlay. Other than gluing on the fretboard and chamfering the edges

Inlay.JPG (48.76 KiB) Viewed 6518 times

the basic constriction is finished.