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My dad began this guitar and has several times said he will never bea able to finish it but would love to play it (cue subtle hint for me to do it). He began this guitar back in the early 90's (before myself and my siblings were born) and just never got the chance to continue it. I would like to finish it for Father's Day and surprise him with it, but other than refinishing and crack repairs, I've never really done much with custom guitars.

It's not very clear in the pictures, but my mom told me he wanted to inlay darker wood up the middle hence the gap between the two burled maple books. I was thinking of using cocobolo or maybe bocote as the main inlay with some black cottonwood between the dark wood and the maple (he grew up in Wyoming so I'd like to work wood from a tree native to that region in there). I don't know much about how these woods would work in terms of expansion and such so I appreciate an other suggestions!

The sides are completely unfinished (as you can see in the pictures) and I currently have no hardware for the instrument. Any advice in regards to this would also be greatly appreciated! I would really love to assist in finishing it; I don't want to just pay someone else to do it. But I also don't want to ruin the work he's already done so I'm turning to you guys for help. I know its really difficult picking up someone's half finished work but I genuinely want to and I want to learn.

Images: http://imgur.com/a/bFQLG

Check out some tutorials on youtube or here in the tutorial section. How you do it depends on what kind of tools that you have access to or whether you want to acquire some tools/jigs to finish it. Check out some binding videos, inlay is pretty straight forward but there are several approaches/videos on that as well. Finishing it with lacquer/something else is one of the most difficult things that you will have to do. You may want to consider outsourcing that step. Good luck!

It looks like the majority of the wood work is done so your really only finishing the guitar. As Joey said have a rake through YouTube and you'll find lots of demos on how to do the binding etc. Remember you don't necessarily need to spray a finish. Brush on sanding sealer followed by a dozen coats of something like tru-oil is a fairly easy and nice looking finish to achieve. The key to any finish is lots of thin coats in my experience. Good luck with it.