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How hard is it to cut abalam strips from a sheet?
Im browsing Rescue Pearl's site and see that they sell 5.5 X 9.5 X.050 Red abalone heart for 258.00. If a strip were to be cut at .063 and the kerf were to eat,say .080 that would mean id get eight 5.5 X.063 X .050 strips per inch, times 9.5 inches would be 76 strips What am I missing here? This seems like a slam dunk! LanceK38468.5155902778

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

math skills

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Amy Hopkins set up a pretty slick system of a dremel mounted in a horizontal cradle. She had a sander attachment on hers (kind of a drum sander of sorts for small parts.)

If you switched that out to a saw blade and carefully positioned the blade to be .063" from the housing that held the cradle you would essentially create a mini table saw. I have thought about doing this before, but never gotten around to it.

I will see if I can score up a pic.

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

I did this once with a mini tile cutter. you know the scribe and break type worked like a charm.

Lance,

Check out this site Aqua Blue Maui Some of the builders here use their product and then take it to a local trophy and engraving shop where they will have it cut to what every design they want or in curved strips for rosettes.Roy O38468.5369907407

Lance,
I haven,t cut any of the ablam with this but I use it to cut my abalone or m.o.p. strips. It is quite a bit cheaper to cut them than to buy them pre-cut.





It was made in a hurry but it works quite well for cutting the strips if shell. The smallest I have cut with it are 1mm.

D.L.

D.L.Huskey38468.6780439815

DL,

It looks like you made a little table saw by turning a dremel on its side and using a cut off wheel. Is that correct? Cool idea!

Jeff

Jeff,
Yes thats all it is. I can't take credit for the idea though. It is a knock-off of one Amy Hopkins uses.

I think a diamond wheel would give a thinner kerf.
D.L.

[QUOTE=Roy O] Lance,

Check out this site Aqua Blue Maui [/QUOTE]
Check out their musical instruments page. If they can bend the stuff around a snare drum, we should be able to bend it around a guitar.

That stuff is for overlay, not inlay, unless it's now thicker than what they were offering before. It's put on thin and finished over, as overlay material. Yes you can bend it around a guitar, but it's sure not purfling strips. Please chime in here if I'm wrong!

It can't be worked with traditional techniques, and I would wonder how deep the color runs, as well as the luminescence.

Please deposit 2 cents..

Craig

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www.handcraftinlay.com

Craig
There was a recent discussion about purfling the sides of a guitar and how you had to break the shell to make it bend around the curves of the guitar sides. Granted, it probably would be a tweaky process, but I think the standards for the shell on the sides of a guitar would be somewhat less than in an inlay. Sounds like they would give an opinion and pointers at that site.

On a similar subject, I have a cheap Alvarez from the '80s that has abalone purfling on the top. I always assumed it was plastic, but now I'm not so sure. Is there such a thing as mother-of-toilet-seat fake plastic abalone?

Yes there is, but it's far from common on guitars. It's a relatively recent gun handle material. I have lots and lots of these plastics in the shop, I have just been waiting on the right image to use most of them. I have things you guys have never seen before I am sure, the thing is they are so crazy pattern-wise they are hard to integrate for my style of work.

Craig

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[QUOTE=clavin] That stuff is for overlay, not inlay, unless it's now thicker than what they were offering before. It's put on thin and finished over, as overlay material. Yes you can bend it around a guitar, but it's sure not purfling strips. Please chime in here if I'm wrong! [/QUOTE]

Craig, You're right this is quite thin. I built two ukuleles in a class under the guidance of a local builder who uses this for his rosettes and also purfling on the top. He routes deeper than the thickness of the material, then inlays it, puts shellac on top of that and lastly sands the shellac flush with the top. I suppose this is what you meant when you said its an overlay. Once the shellac is flush you can't tell that the rosette is recessed in the wood.

Some students used this for purfling on the top and although it was too guaudy for my taste, when done well it came out looking good.

I hope this clears up any questions about this material.

As an alternative, you might want to investigate what lapidaries use for cutting expensive materials, ie opal and faceting rough. It is a slightly larger version of the mini wheel made of, generally, phospher-bronze and coated on the edges with diamond. These can and should be run wet but have several advantages. First, their kerf is thinner. Second, the blades run slower and cooler and third, you can cut the stone thinner. As an example, I can cut opal "slabs" about 1/2 mm thick for opal doublets.

Just a thought for the adventurists out there.

Steve Brown

Approximate Thickness:
Raw = .012mm
ThinLam = .15mm

Can be cut with simple hobbyist tools, paper cutter, or scissors. Scratch Resistant, Flexible. Raw veneers are sold with or without adhesive backing.

Craig L

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Not like many of us have CNC machines lying around, but if you have access to someone who does it is a great way to cut shell sheets.

Josh

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Josh House

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