Official Luthiers Forum!

.... Does anyone know who sells this stuff?

Cheers,

Richard

I doubt anyone. That sound like a custom inlay project. It would have to be done as individual pieces because of the inflexibility of MOP. you would literally have to cut shape and inlay each piece to account for curvature of the profile on tops and backs, Sides might be less work but still quite a bit.

Martin uses it on a few of their guitars..... it's hard for me to believe that they do it all by hand... someone must make it...gibson35539017.5411574074

I have seen it for sale occassionally. Someone had it up for auction at the last ASIA convention... but it escapes me who sponsored that.

Call around to the usual suppliers. If they don't have it, I bet they know who does.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

I think it might have been the Duke of Pearl.

Andy dePaule has little parallelograms for making MOP "rope". Not as fine as herringbone.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Learn something new here every day How the heck would you handle the curves if you did not hand inlay it. Andy DePaule carries this but I would think the tight curves would not look quite right.

The Duke of Pearl (Chuck Erikson) was making an abalone version but it was strickly sold only to Martin. I don't know if that has change or if he is still making it. I saw some at a Bay Area luthiers meeting several years ago but it was just a tease since he, under contract with Martin, couldn't sell it. He said the process for installing it is just like that for ablam strips but you use a hot air gun to soften for bending.John How39017.6355902778

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Did I miss something? I thought we were talking about MOP! I haven't tried but I don't think MOP would bend with heat.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Chuck does sell it as rosette and binding material. Last set I got was over $400 for a guitar ar ASIA symposium

   tippie5339017.7420833333

Can you be really specific about how it'd be put together? Would it be an MOP herringbone with ebony for the black, maybe? Wanted in big pieces (MOP pre-inlaid into a piece of wood purfling) or would you want tiny individual MOP pieces that could be inlaid into something else by you?

The Fadal will be up and running soon, so I might be in a position to make the stuff within the next month or so.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

The Pearl herringbone is in a strip about 3 inches long and will come in a series of curves. search for pearlworks the can tell you more since they have the product.
   I am not sure but I think the black is a wood fiber product. Looks great under a finish
john hall

[QUOTE=Dave Rickard] Did I miss something? I thought we were talking about MOP! I haven't tried but I don't think MOP would bend with heat.[/QUOTE]

Dave, the shell is not bending but the whole thing will bend when heated, I'm sure it's just the adhesive holding all the pieces together that is relaxing. This stuff as with normal herringbone is made up of lots of little tiny pieces. I've only seen one person install this stuff and this is the way he was instructed to do it by the Duke himself.John How39020.381724537

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.