I was trying out ideas for position marker dot inlays, and I came up with this. A few minutes later, I started thinking it looks familiar. Anyone recognize this? It's very similar to this Unicode syllable: ꗝ but I can't find anything else online. I feel like it's either a math or alchemy symbol maybe.
I don't know of a historical symbol where three circles surround a larger central circle. It kind of evokes the banner of peace, or the "therefore" symbol, or the triangle of the art, or the triqueta or triskele, or even the mark of the beast. Just about anything with three circles can be connected to it, like the tomoe. Going just a bit further, the thing which sets that apart from most older symbols is the larger circle in the center. That kind of element is more likely to arise when working within the constraints of the board-and-string methodology of crop circle hoaxers. There have been a few guitars which have inlays to invoke that imagery. Is this likely what you're remembering?
The unicode symbol is a part of the Vai language, not sure if it is exacting to the symbol in the pic. Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vai_language
I like when I take the time to do a little investigation, and then make the mistake of asking for a little feedback from the questioner....
Is that a fretboard for a 2 string bass or something? What are you laying out here? I like the inlay idea. It would be simple to pull off. It reminds me of a molecule model, I guess this would be CH3?
Sorry, I would've responded properly earlier, but my computer has been a problem lately, and the website wasn't playing well with my phone until this most recent update. I don't recall having seen any guitars with inlays like this. I do remember seeing various crop circle inlays, but those were fairly elaborate full-length inlays. If there's something similar to what I've come up with, I'd like to check it out! As for your other suggestions, I think that three dots/shapes in a triangle is just a popular shape for logos/symbols. The central dot seems to give off an astronomy/chemistry/alchemy vibe, which works for me!
That's actually just an offcut from one of the guitars I'm working on. I just thought it would make sense to test out this idea first. I'm going to actually drill/install the inlays on the scrap piece first to see if the black abs material will stand out enough on the birdseye maple. I like the idea that it implies a molecule model. I'd definitely been thinking it seemed to be related to astronomy/chemistry/alchemy. *edit* Slightly off-kilter proof of concept test run, complete with a little bit of boiled linseed oil to get a good idea of the finished products probable look.
CH3 would be radicalized (CH3+), so, more likely NH3, as that would be much more stable. In your photo, the top dot looks a bit off, too far to the left, to my eyes.
Yep, hence why I called it 'off-kilter'. Just eyeballed it for a test run. The actual inlay will be mapped out extensively
well if you're going to run with the chemistry theme, why not use tnt's chemical formula? That could be cool or at least cooler than ammonia lol, plus you could even use different colors for the different atoms like a real chem model. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Trinitrotoluene.svg
I'm only using black side dot material for this idea, so it is what it is I guess! Luckily, it seems to have implied a fairly broad range of things to a lot of people, so I'm just letting it be whatever people want to see. I've had quite a few people say it reminds them of the all-seeing eye, which I'm a fan of to begin with, so I think that's the meaning for me
More specifically, it's 3 circles in a triangle pattern with a medallion in the center. It's totally Satanic!
