Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi folks,

I’m in the process of designing an inlay for a customer that is basically a bird outline that will be fairly large in size. The instrument is a 00 and it’s wings spread out to be most of the size of the upper bout. I’m thinking the outline would be maybe 1/8” or 3/16”. There are a few detail pieces inside the outline for feathers, etc…

I had planned to cut the outline in sections on the CNC using blanks. Once I started pricing it out, holy smokes.

I see there are much larger sheets of celluloid and the cost would be a small fraction of doing it in pearl. I also saw some pearl veneer on eBay that could be glued to a substrate and cut, that would be more affordable as well.

Is there a better supplier than LMI or SM for sheets of pearl where I could maybe get the price down to a more manageable number?

Brad


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

_________________
Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

Check on Etsy.

You can't really hide seams in pearl, so it would probably look best in MOTS.

Have a look here Brad. Good quality, good price.
http://www.mopsupplies.com/

I engrave all of my inlays, and when I'm doing bigger pieces, I make sure that any seams in my pearl fall along lines that I'll be engraving anyway. As long as I'm careful to match the smaller pieces of pearl I'm using in term of chatoyance angle, color, etc., the seams can be pretty much invisible.

Dave

I find myself gravitating away from mop as inlay material. Oddly enough, wood can bring an element that pearl cannot. I realized a while ago custom inlays are for the client, and not the world. Perspective changes.

Since the outline is so big, maybe try maple, Koa, same wood as the binding, etc.

Can you guess this person’s last name?


Its Akeo. Coincidentally, related to Kamaka (as in Ukulele).

I've mentioned this before. Some years ago Fish and Wildlife stopped a shipment from MOP Supplies to me. It is not actually legal to import animal products without a F & W license.They gave me a warning and I have had a license ever since, at the cost of $100.00 per year and $93.00 per shipment import fee , no matter how large or small the import. I have not heard of this happening to anyone else, but just worth considering because the fines are rather large. F & W is way understaffed, so probably no worries. I was just lucky I guess! I know this goes on all the time on eBay too.-Bob

_________________
“ The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away” Pablo Picasso

The duke of Pearl has the best material and prices if you go with shell.

The full sheets of Abalam tm are quite large.