Holy cannoli. William Laskin does some incredible inlay work (not to mention making beautiful acoustic guitars). Here’s a summary of his inlay process:

Here’s a capsule overview… It is the result of using 9 different species of shell, 15 different types of stone, 4 different kinds of ivory and bone, 3 different metals, hand cutting them to recreate an original pencil sketch, insetting them 1.2mm. deep into a corresponding cavity in the ebony fingerboard and the ebony headstock veneer, leveling them, cutting detail into them line by line with a simple hand-held “graver” (not a power tool), then filling in those cuts with a wax/stearate/dye compound.

I LOVE this one of Salvador Dali.