Official Luthiers Forum!

So I happened to pick up a bunch of unpolished pearl nuclei off thr world of fleabay. Been thinking about ways to cut it to use in inlays for simple things like side dot markers or just position markers.

I have a jig that will easily hold the round pearls but I've been trying to find a good way to cut them into dot sized pieces. Has anyone used something like a 3mm coring bit to cut stuff like this? Or if there's a better way to cut them I'm all ears.

I remember seeing a video long ago, (Chris Paulick ?), where you glue a small piece of shell to the blunt end
of a drill bit, and chuck it upside down in a drill press and use a file to shape to bit size. You are using the bit as template, sort of. Can't remember the whole procedure.
Alan

For side dot markers would it be just as easy to inlay it 1/2 way and file off the top?

I have used the liquid hide glue to put on a drill bit or dowel then shape using a edge sander or a vertical belt sander (preferred).
They come out just as round as the ones you buy.
It's a lot of work to make a few.

I had that thought, only issue is that they're perfectly round right now which would make it tough to really get them in there solidly I would think?

Only reason I was thinking about the coring bits would be to cut out several dot sized pieces from a single pearl. Might be a fools errand at this point.

What diameters are the nuclei that you have?

Several different sizes. 5/16 1/4 and the smallest ones are around 1/8

Using the small dots as side markers might not be too much trouble if you drill the hole in the fingerboard with the typical twist drill which will leave a rounded bottom, gluing them in and filing off the tops.
If you can read the grain on the shell of the larger nuclei you might be able to split them with a chisel, glue them to a carrier board flat side down and run them through a sander to sand the other side flat. That might give you a couple of dots per nuclei, and might not be too bad of a "time sink".
Another way to split the nuclei might be to use the end nippers we use for cutting fret wire. I have used them to snap flat shell for inlay. It goes pretty quickly and avoids the dust usually associated with cutting shell. My technique isn't perfect, and the finished inlay has a little more "organic" look than a professionally prepared product would give.

Thanks for the ideas! I think I'll try the flat board trick on a splt one tomorrow.