The center is .25" and the edges are just under .2" (.1999")

So, I sanded the finish off the neck and headstock.

The original plan was to sand level the finish on the front of the headstock to preserve the original decal. But, the pre-existing gouge in the crook of the headstock up near the bottom of the guitar in the logo, along with a couple of new gouges I made with the Dremel when I was taking the finish off the sides of the headstock, had my pondering making a new decal.

This logo artwork is slightly different from what I did for Jay's guitar. This artwork has a black outline around the gold. The original logos were just the gold.

I have an Alps MD-5000 dry transfer printer that has the ability to print gold and silver foil, as well as metallics. Here's sample of the final artwork, printed on water-transfer decal paper, ready for the transfer process.

There were some bumps along the road. At first, I used the decal paper that came with the PulsarPro dry transfer system. The Alps foils didn't really stick too well to that paper. The artwork above was printed on Alps-specific decal paper. The gold border is necessary for the PulsarPro transfer system.

When I got this artwork below, I decided it was time to move onto the next step.

The decal paper with the artwork is covered with thin mylar and is run through a laminating machine to form a light bond between the artwork and mylar so the mylar acts like a carrier sheet. Afterward, the decal paper/mylar carrier is soaked in warm water until the decal releases. So far, so good. Onto the next step.

Whoops! Unfortunately, the heat and pressure from the laminator causes the artwork and mylar to form too strong of a bond for a reliable release. So, it's back to the drawing board.

Not really. Just onto another system of decal preparation. About this time, I ran out of gold foil. So, I decided to use silver foil as a substitute. This time, I'm going old-school water transfer decals. First, the artwork is printed onto the decal paper, then sprayed with a thin coat of Krylon Krystal Klear acryllic paint. The clear paint seals the artwork in and acts as a carrier sheet when the decal paper coating is dissolved in water.

I'm also testing a solid-color mono-chromatic logo. This was a failure. This was the artwork I was printing when I ran out of gold foil.

An outline logo.

All three are cut out with a pair of scissors, very close to the artwork to minimize the amount of carrier sheet showing through.

And, here's the silver logo stuck to a scrap of spruce that came from the 1617 top. I used this wood because it provides a smooth surface as a base and so I'd be able to see the wood grain showing through the artwork.

Here's the solid color logo. Unfortunately, the coat of Krylon was too thin on the outline logo and it fell apart when it released from the backing paper.

And, here's the silver logo next to the headstock logo. One change that will have to be made is to close in the "O" in the guitar. I thought is was hollow, but it's actually solid black. The rest looks pretty good.

Next, I'll spray some Minwax clear polyurethane over the decals to make sure the carrier sheet disappears.

Happy New Year!

I sprayed the decals with the clear polyurethane and they will work fine. Based upon this, I moved ahead with removing the finish from the front of the head stock, including the decal. So, I'm pretty much committed.

Here's a time-lapse video of me taking the polyester finish off with a Dremel finishing/sanding buff. Actual time in the video sequence shown was about 20 minutes.

Here's the head stock after scraping and sanding.

And, I wet the head stock with naptha so I could see what it will it look like under the new clear finish. The walnut is a nice contrast.

Next job is to glue the binding to the sides of the fret board.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

I'm using .040" cream binding from AllParts.com for the the neck binding. I used my binding shaving holder to reduce the width of the neck binding strips from 1/2" to just over 1/4".

First, the center part of the binding is cut to size, then beveled to match the sides of the fingerboard. Glue is applied to the wood, then the part is squeezed and taped into place.

Strips of binding tape are pre-applied to the bottom of the fretboard to help keep the side bindings in alignment while they'r being glued.

Working in about 9" segments the binding is glued and taped into place with binding tape.

Now, the binding for the other side is glued and taped into place.

I'll let the glue dry 24 hours, then peel off the tape tomorrow afternoon to see how it looks and, hopefully, start scraping the binding down to the shape of the neck.

TPA..I often wondered that, especially when everything was hand made. How many man hours went into making a shiny bowl Balladeer...I am assuming that the bowl was actually a cost saving measure over wood boxes, both in time and money, then as well as today.

So, the work continues.

The binding glue has dried. I used diagonal cutters (wire cutters) to snip off the excess side neck binding and started removing the tape.

I used a razor saw to cut the binding flush with the end of the fingerboard.

And, removed the rest of the binding tape. There were a few areas where the tape had too good of a grip on the ebony fingerboard and pulled some chips out. These were glued with thin CA.

Lots O' glue-globs along the glue joint.

Binding has been scraped down so it's flush with the top of the fingerboard.

A little boo-boo happened when I got a little too exuberant with the scraping and pulled some of the binding away from the lower corner. This was re-glued and taped.

Next job is to drill the holes for the fret side marker dots. All hole locations were measured, then I used the point of a brad point bit to pre-drill the locations so the high-speed bit doesn't wander. The hole at the 3rd fret has been drilled and the 5th fret is next.

All the holes have been drilled. Ovation usually carries the fret side marker dots all the way to the sound hole, but I decided to stop at the 12th fret, mainly because the body gets in the way of playing the higher frets, and more importantly to me, anything above the 12th fret is no man's land.

I tried to buy some fret marker material from the local Guitar Center, but the luthier behind the repair bench told me it was a special-order item. So, I went down to my local Hobby Sheeple, er, People and bought some 1/16" carbon fiber rod. It's harder to work with than the regular side fret marker material, (styrene or ABS) but it's still workable.

Here I've cut some lengths of CF rod.

I sanded one end of each to give the glue some bite to hold the rods in place.

I applied a little daub of glue to the end of the rod, then stuffed it into the hole.

After the glue is dry, I'll cut the rods close with the binding with a razor saw, then sand them flush.

I used the razor saw to cut off the excess side markers, then shaped down the bindings.

Here's the bridge end of the fingerboard.

Looking down the side of the neck.

For the most part, the neck is done. It still needs frets, but I'll add those after I finish the work on the top.

Next job is to start prepping the top for gluing to the body. Since I've covered this in detail on other threads I'll only post when I reach the major steps