My old Ariana Guitar

I bought this guitar when I was about 16 years old from a friend who had bought it as a starter guitar. The music thing didn’t really catch on for him, and he wanted to get rid of it, so I gave him $50 for it – $10 less than new. I’ve had it for 48 years now and it still plays pretty well, although the touch is nothing to write home about.

Ol' Faithful


It’s become my practice guitar. I tried out inlaying into the fingerboard on this already fretted guitar, and found that I much preferred inlaying into a non fretted fingerboard.

Practice makes perfect


On the other hand I found out that it can be done, and that bears made pretty good fret markers. They appeal to me anyways. So do the canoes, especially on the bridges. They jump right out at you. Somehow the canoe and canoeist remind me of an image of Pierre Elliot Trudeau that I saw in a magazine. The other canoe image, seen on the fingerboard, is one of a birchbark canoe.

Bears on 3rd and 5th frets


More bears - 12th fret


Bridge with canoes


Sizing of the patterns to be inlayed is important, and that’s where a good copier with a zoom feature comes in handy. I often make several copies of the same design at different sizes to fit the 1st fret through to the 17th fret.