Inlaying For The First Time

[Duff Beer Man]

Well, i got three sheets of abalone of ebay for 14 bucks shipped to my house. Im very happy with the look of the sheets, however they are very then. They are .15mm thick, thats .006 of an inch thick. About the thickness of cardstock, for all of you know know what that is. My question is should i go ahead and try to inlay this stuff as it is. of should i use some epoxy and glue them together so i get some thickness when i inlay them in?

[Mattia]

Well, i got three sheets of abalone of ebay for 14 bucks shipped to my house. Im very happy with the look of the sheets, however they are very then. They are .15mm thick, thats .006 of an inch thick. About the thickness of cardstock, for all of you know know what that is. My question is should i go ahead and try to inlay this stuff as it is. of should i use some epoxy and glue them together so i get some thickness when i inlay them in?

Ouch, that's thin. Typical for asian-style inaly, though, which is often little more than overlay. Don't even think about using much of any piece of any width for fingerboard inlay. You might get away with very precise headstock inlay, but it's going to be a bit of a pain to cut. You can laminate it yourself (superglue should work as well), or stick it to some form of thin backer. Stuff that thin's going to be murderous to saw.

[Batfink]

I'm with Mattia - stuff that thin is used for overlay not inlay (such as Epiphone use for their headstock logo's).

Again i'd agree that it's not wise to use it for anywhere that'll get any wear at all and 100% not for fretboards.

Jem

[Ledzendrix1128]

I dont know if this is good advice, but why glue it together to get thickness when you could glue it to another material, that way you wont be wasting all that abalone.

[Duff Beer Man]

i thought about that ledz, and the reason i came up with was when you lnlay something u have it stick proud of the surface to sand down. With stuff this thin i would sand right through it to the material behind it. So if the material behind is the same as the front then it will look the same.

[cSuttle]

Personally, I think your asking for trouble with that stuff. Even if you use it for a headstock, you better be really certain that you don't need to do anymore sanding. A couple of sanding strokes could blow though that. And you better be sure to put on a nice thick clear coat to product it or it will flake right off.

My suggestion would be to chalk this up to experience and just throw it away. If you want to do real inlay work on a fretboard you really need the .06" stuff. Even on a headstock this is adviceable stuff to use. It makes it a lot easier to level if all your pieces are thicker.

How much Paua do you need? I have a few extra sheet in the shop right now and I could give you a good price on a 1/4 or 1/2 sheet.

[Duff Beer Man]

I just want to do a jem vine the pieces i have now are 9.5 inches long by 5.5 inches wide, and it should be enough to do a vine. How much would u charge for your piece?

[cSuttle]

I don't think you would need 3 full sheets to do that. One sheet should be more than enough. I could probably pull it off in 1/2, but I'm really good at using material. Stewmac sells 1/4 sheets for 62.50 of the.05". I can do better than that and my sheets are .06". Email me. I don't like talking prices on forums. It's in bad taste.

[wardd]

This is an outside the box idea, but:

Epoxy the stuff onto 1/8 in. plexiglass, then inlay that.

Might work for fingerboard inlays.

d ward

[Clavin]

Or just do this..

Throw that stuff in your parts bin for now, buy some real quality higher grade inlay materials, at least abalam, or real pearl that is .05 or so, the thicker the better. And start out doing things right. You'll never have a real use for that thin stuff unless you use it as overlay. It's not designed for inlay. The oriental stuff they call inlay is actually more like overlay. It's floated in an epoxy route, and shaped by exacto knife cutting. It's a slightly different art. Yes it gives the effect of being inlay, but it's lower quality, faster, and not what you want on a guitar fingerboard.

Craig Lavin

www.handcraftinlay.com

[cSuttle]

Or just do this..

Throw that stuff in your parts bin for now, buy some real quality higher grade inlay materials, at least abalam, or real pearl that is .05 or so, the thicker the better. And start out doing things right. You'll never have a real use for that thin stuff unless you use it as overlay. It's not designed for inlay. The oriental stuff they call inlay is actually more like overlay. It's floated in an epoxy route, and shaped by exacto knife cutting. It's a slightly different art. Yes it gives the effect of being inlay, but it's lower quality, faster, and not what you want on a guitar fingerboard.

Craig Lavin

www.handcraftinlay.com

Perfect way to say Craig. You and I was definately on the same page.

[Guitarfrenzy]

I've seen great prices on inlay like that before, and then realised how thin it was, so I never bought any of it. You have to read all the fine print to really understand what your buying.

[Clavin]

Cliff, I know you said it very well already, but it didn't seem to be taking effect.. That happens here a lot!

Craig

Same page agreed ....

[cSuttle]

Same page agreed ....

I LOVE the little reading guy. I never noticed him before. What a perfect use for that.

Yeah the guys selling fretboards like that just tick me off, because they are just ripping people off and it makes the real inlay guys have to work harder to make people understand how much work real inlay takes. The thin inlay is pretty much nothing more than stickers.

The funny thing is that the guys that produce those thin sheets even tell people not to use it on any surface that will be handled. So what do these guys do with it, make fretboards

Edited March 10, 2006 by cSuttle