Official Luthiers Forum!

Well, my friend Kevin Ryan has done it again.... last time was the A4 Kerfing but now he pushed the envelope a little bit further.

Here's the deal, Kevin came up with his own way to do Abalone purfling. Its a super effective way to inlay soundboards and backs with Abalam without the headache and time constraints of teflon strips, etc...
This stuff bends is all axis making it as easy to install as regular wood or vener purflings, just glue it down and tape it.
But better yet, for those of us that have been comtemplating side abalone purflings, here's the oppurtunity to do it....and relatively easy.

Kevin will be making the FlexAb (patent pending) available for sale, so I wanted to share with you guys first hand.

For now he uses .047" wide by .075" thick in 4.7" strips but other widths will be available soon. I will update details later as I get them.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

wowzer! how in the world does it work? assuming you can give out that information. talk about making life easier. what other info can you give us? price?

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sweat the small stuff.

Now that is cool!! Kevin Ryan is one of my favorite builders.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

It works as easy as inlaying a 4" piece of purfling... only difference....its abalam!!
I'll have more info very soon!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Goodness me!!!

More design possibilities!! My head is swimming...

A laser is a cool toy...I'm guessing he simply cuts the stuff part of the way through on all edges...

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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."

Don, the design/method is patented soI wont go into details but its not made with a laser.
I see what you mean but this stuff is much more flexible....

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Your saying kerfed ablam purfling Cool Idea but how much sand ability does that leave you? you don't need a lot but you do need some. In particularly for sides.

Next question is if this is kerfed ablam then we will soon have some calling it abakerling Dont look Howared

Definitely no laser work; bad things happen when you hit shell with a laser, and a laser kerf is pretty thick even if you could cut the stuff with it. Using a flexible glue on the abalam layers should do the trick, so that'd be my guess.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Wow Flex-Ab - next we will be seeing buns of BRW.....

Thanks Peter for letting us know!

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Hesh
Ann Arbor, MI USA
http://www.heshtone.com

Ok if it is not kerfed ablam. without going into patten proprietary info. What is it? Is made from real shell lamentations like ablam? If so then how is it that bendable with out cracking or delaminating the shell lamentations. Don't mean to be a pessimist here but I use a lot of natural shell abalone and know how easily it delaminates when stressed. bending tight curves the inside curve need to compress and the outside needs to expand. I can tell you shell does not do this.

In fact as I look close at the first photo I see signs of delamination in several spots. They are not obvious till you look at them at 2x scale the they are easy to find. It appears to be segments of shell or ablam on a flexible backbone. Even with this the hard way bend have me scratching my head. I will wait till I know more to be impressed, but for now I have lots of questions.

ROFLMBFAO

Did some photo enhancement work just to see the basic priciple of this.

As expected this is many small pieces of cut segments of what I believe to be natural shell laminated on a flexible back binding of some type. Notice where the bend is the shell pieces edges separate from each other. Some how or an other this must be addressed or will be very noticable I would think.

notice on pic 1a, in the middle of the pic, a segment of the shell is delaminating. If this was to fall off it would create some problems and need replaced. Notice on 1c the last segment did delaminate down to near the backing

There really isn't any problem explaining how a patented process works, you just can't commercially copy it.

If it really is patented we should be able to look it up anyway.

My guess is though that it would be so difficult for us to manufacture it is just much simplier to call Kevin, thank him for his cleverness and order a few pieces.

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

I like the idea he used natural shell. I would have to play with the stuff first cause still think the opening up of the edges would be an issue for me. It is one thing to see a seam line an other to see a v shaped valley

Interesting...

(Although as a note, if it's patented, it's per definition public information, and not secret.)

But a patent applied for but not accepted is a risky place. Until the patent is granted, which takes some time, you're not completely safe.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Michael, its abalam not real shell. (well, I guess Abalam is made from real shell! )

To try and answer other questions, the FlexAb is inlaid the same way one would with solid shell by breaking the shell and making it conform into the cavity left by the Teflon strips. The difference is the FlexAb is already broken onto the strips that allow you to use it like any purfling. The idea behind it is to make a task a lot faster and easier.
If you are concerned about the end results, you can go to Kevin's site and see the many guitars he has built using this stuff.

Its amazing I tell ya!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

I would think that this would require a flexible adhesive. Normal ablam as I understand is bonded with epoxy, if you changed out the epoxy with a flexible adhesive like a silicone, this could give the result we see here. I know that silicone would introduce a nightmare to the finishing process, and even if you could over come that issue the fact that it would remain flexible under the finish would lead to crazing. But, if you did have the ablam in a flexible substrate which hardened via glue penetration when being inlayed, then this would work, and maybe that is what we are seeing here. Just a thought.

Cheers

Kim

Oooow the edit button Sorry Peter, I was typing and got called away before your post, having an adhesive backing to keep the bits together of course makes much better sense.

Hesh, You are too much! buns of brw!
Flex ab hmmmmm, very interesting....It looks so easy to use.I like it.

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

I do not break natural shell. I snip to length then miter edges

Could have fooled me, I have never seen ablam delaminate like the piece in my pic 1a. Only issue I would have with it is as it is bent it has to open up some separation between the segment in the area of the bend. When bending for top purfling it has to compress the small side intersections of adjoining segments and open up the large side. This interferences between the inside adjoining edges has to cause a bit of a faceted bend rather than a smooth arc. Depending on hoe small each segment is this may not be a biggie. On the other hand the separation at the large side of the bend is a biggie for me. that is open space that has to be filled with something. I suspect the key to make this work well enough is very small segments. Still then you can't keep all edges closed against the all the adjoining segments . To make rectangles form a smooth radius they must be mitered to keep the edges closed.

I use natural shell for all my inlay and purfling. When doing a top purfling I spend the time to match miters at each edge of each segment I make so that I can push them tight to each other so that I don't have void areas that need filling. This sound like a really time consuming process but in truth it takes just about an hour for me to install top shell purfling mitered to fit tight to each segment


I don't mean to rag on these The odiously work well enough for Kevin. This approach has been taken by others in the past. maybe never to the point of applying for patent. I suspect the key to make this work well is very small segments. I wish Kevin well with these.

sometimes its hard to understand how something works or even picture the results. I have seen the FlexAb and seen the results and I tell you it works like a charm!!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

I suspect that the word "odiously" was supposed to be "obviously"...but it does have a kind of interesting Freudian slip kind of ring...

It does, doesn't it! Nice catch, Rick.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Peter,
If it is patented, then it is public knowledge. I did several patent searches and found no patents for Kevin for this or and other instrument related IP. I may not have done a good search, but I tried hard.
Are you sure it is patented?
You can do searches on the link below.

You can find a couple of my patents by doing an advanced search for "Steven AND Saville AND Embolic". I tried many searches for "Kevin AND Ryan AND XXXXXXXXXX" with XXXXXXX being anything I could think of for this and found nothing except medical device patents. My guess is that is a different Kevin Ryan.

BTW-Many company do not patent processes because to do so gives it away. Many companies only patent designs that can be protected. Processes are most often trade secrets. Sometimes processes are disclosed and not patented merely to stop others from obtaining a patent. If I was in Kevin's shoes, I would not patent this. His fluted armrest is something that could be patented and easily protected.



http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.