Holes And Ridges In Abalone

[verhoevenc]

What exactly is this? What do you do about it? Is this a useless piece of abalone, ie: did I get screwed with this particular piece? (I'm refering to the huge mess of like "holes" in that one side,a dn then the other side has those little "tiger claw" marks in the center).

Chris

[Southpa]

I always like to have the stuff in my hands before I buy it. In most of the shops I visit (bead shops, rockhound shops etc.) I usually find about 75% of their stock is like that. Why is it like that you might ask? Because most abalone stocks are off limits, at least locally, to harvesting. Fresh shells can be hard to come by. The pitted stuff is actually shell thats been found on the beach. Its been tossed around and eroded by sand for a number of years. The softer areas of the shell are worn away, hence the pitting and striations.

[mikhailgtrski]

What exactly is this? What do you do about it? Is this a useless piece of abalone, ie: did I get screwed with this particular piece? (I'm refering to the huge mess of like "holes" in that one side,a dn then the other side has those little "tiger claw" marks in the center).

The "tiger claw marks" are from where the animal attaches to the shell - it's called "abalone heart". It's not useless, in fact, it looks really nice when it's buffed out. It just doesn't match the "normal" abalone.

The second fret from the right has a bit of heart material. I used the reverse (outside) of some heart blanks to do some headstock lettering.

I don't know where you got yours, but DePaule lets you know that their ounces of paua blanks occasionally include some heart material.

Mike

[Batfink]

Natural product is all i can really say. Not that i've got any examples - really must get myself a digicam - but sometimes a piece that looks unusable in the raw ends up looking better than all the rest when you've finished.

Jem