The easiest way to do mother of pearl inlay is to rout out the shape as close as possible with a dremel. But it does not have to be perfect by any means, if you know a trick. You rout out the wood, glue the inlay in, then the trick.
Save a bag of very fine sandpaper shavings (powder, actually) from the headstock, so the color matches. Pour the powder in the gap between the inlay and the wood, then drop super glue on the powder. It bubbles up and flows over the inlay and looks awful. But it gets very hard, and you sand it down so it's all flush and cleaned up. Et voila! See for yourself, on an F5 mandolin I built. It works great on ebony, not quite as good on wood with a grain pattern, but not bad.
