Clavin

Well now that's an honor. Larry was my teacher basically. I learned every basic starting block from him. that guitar is a michelangelo style mastrpiece. It's literally the ultimate in traditional inlay. Most of Larries works are like that. I prefer to stick to the natural world, and leave the gods and heavens to him Craig.

Hi Guys. At first I didn't like where the poll was heading, but in the end I really liked the upcoming ideas. "Pro" vs. Newbie sounds like fun, build two guitars, etc.. My only addition would be to have the pros, and newbies "promise" to make tutorials on thier specific expertise. That way the true mission of the site is held together. Luthiers teaching others how to build guitars. We would get a lot of new tutorials that way, on almost every aspect of guitar building. What do you think? Craig

It's called abalam. Or Laminated shell sheet. It comes in thicknesses frm .03 to .12 or more. You want to use .04 to .06 depending on your application. As long as you make sure it's from a reputable source (any major guitar supplier- stew mac, LMI, depaul, rescuepearl, ect.. ) it should be O.K There are a few types out there that are complete junk. Craig

I wish I knew how to do that! Sweet! Craig

Thanks.. The lines are drawn in with pencil, then engraved with a graver tool, then filled with a wax type compund. It will wear out with play eventually, but it will take a while. Most people that get that degree of inlay are collectors, and not really using that particular guitar for gigs. Pencil is how I get the pattern on to the shell to lay out my engraving pattern. The process takes hours. Craig

Well, there you go. Now I suggest doing an image search on Google for just those thing. Then print them out, or use the library, shop magazines, sears adds, etc.. Just make sure if it's copywrited to get permission to use it first. If you have a digital camera take your own photos of your shop gear and use those. You can even pose things the way you want them to look. I do that a lot. Get your self a folder for the printouts, draw them out and/or make detailed tracings of all the images you feel go best. Trace out a fretboard, and mark off the fretlines. These will be where the frets go, so pay attention to the details, and what may get covered up. You can re-size objects using a photocopy machine so that things fit best in your fretboard space. Layout the design as you see fit and go from there. Make a final image based upon your composits. You'll be amazed at what you can do. A full fretboard ful of gears made of stearling silver, black pearl, mother of pearl, could be really cool, especially if you make all the gears interconnect like the insides of a clock. Oh- and just because brian hasn't seen anyting like that doesn't mean it's not cool It means it's original I thought a cool inlay for the project guitar "guitar" could be Brian sitting at the computer, the compter chords lead to a guitar body (plugged into it), and a bunch of hands are putting tthe rest together. It would require Brian modelling, and a lot of engraving for the hair and face, but it would be cool (at least to forum members!) Craig

Thanks Curtis Well, your at the most fun part. What do YOU want on YOUR guitar? What floats your boat? Your the captain! If you can think it, you can draw it, and if you can draw it, you can inlay it most likely. I got into inlay because I thought it would be cool to see a guitar with a coral reef inlaid down the fretboard. My "Living Sea" guitar is the result Don't get stuck on things you have seen already. That's 99.99% of peoples problems when to comes to guitar inlay. Your first inlay can be a single outline, or maybe a few pieces. Practice on some scrap wood first whatever you do. Your going to make mistakes. I have made plenty, and keep making them. thats how you learn. So- my standard question set that goes out to my clients (who know they want "someting" but are not sure) is based on this- 1) What inspires you the most 2) Any hobbies or passions you like to think about? 3) Favorite animals, or marine life (sorry.. my personal thing!) You get the basic idea. Craig

Sorry to see that happen Lex. So how did the repair come out? Voting on the "best" to to do the work may not be needed in a lot of cases. Lets take the inlay example. I have seen a lot of work on these pages all equal at least in quality, cut, etc.. Now if the image is what you prefer over someone elses art that is a personal opinion. No reason one inlayer can't do the fretboard, and another the headstock, etc.. The more get involved the better! Craig.

Rescuepearl.com ( pearl- abalam, other things) Masecraft supply- (plastics, pearl, recon stone, acrylics, tons of other stuff) Duke of pearl- pearl orders over $1000.00 each- rare pearl species and abalam. Andy Depaul- white river pearl, pink mussel, a lot of other odder things, but very good different shell materials. Basically I search out whatever material suites the color or effect I need. I have had customers wait over a month for me just to get the proper materials in. They don't seem to mind waiting for something special. Craig.

1) I would love to do an archtop. In fact my next inlay is going on a $5,000 Buscarino. I may use that as a tutorial for a normal radiused fretboad. I'm pretty excited about the artwork so far. Orchids and humingbird. I know it's been done before, but not in the realistic sense. Mostly as vines, etc.. 2) As far as stuff breaking and repairs, screw ups, that's part of luthiery everyday. It happenes. A begginner may screw something up pretty badly, an expert knows how to make the screw up go away! Craig.

Well, I guess we know it's going to be an electric, solid body at least. Other options would be whatever options are available on an electric. Personally I think it should demonstrate more than anything else that we can all work together as a group, regardless of details involved. You need to be able to roll with what shows up at your door. Thankfully we have a forum to discuss things in! I think lex's idea of a voting page, etc.. would keep things running smoothly at least during the design process.. Craig

I was going to donate time, materials, everything. A full inlay, should I be called upon to do the work. Thats what donating is to me. I am not doing it for the "exposure". I'm not sure how much it would actually get, even on ebay. I just thought it wold be fun, and a cool way for the site to demostrate it's prowess. I am still up for it. the voting may get bogged down, but remember there is no time limit on this (yet). Of course not getting it done is embarrassing, so we'll have to organise those details as well. Craig.

So did it ever happen? Or is it still in the panning stages?? Was it voted down? I'm looking for a bottom line here. I may have missed it in all the text. Thanks. Craig

Another site I frequent has decided to have it's members build a guitar then auction it off to support the site. Each member donated thier time-talents, etc.. in helping with either woods, finishing, or other materials. I am not involved in that project, however I think a "project Guitar" member built guitar would be really cool! Of course it would require shipping materials, excellent communications- open and frank, maybe voting for the options, but I believe we are up for it. The finished guitar could be auctioned off to the members, or others and the proceeds used to run the site.. We could all see a bit of each others work in the process. Brian what do think?? I'm donating an inlay to start out! We can vote on the image and theme Any takers?? Of course this needs to be discussed- it was just a suggestion! Craig

The materials for the sword are sterling silver, black pearl, gold pearl, and green abalone. Materials for the girl and water are pipestone, red abalone, gold pearl, black pearl, Mother of pearl, all in different configurations (top or botom side flipped) Materials for the whales inlay are paua shell, silver dust, black abalone heart (extremely rare- I can't get any anymore, I don't even bother.. ) white river pearl, black plastics, mother of pearl, and the tuner knob "teeth" inlays are fossil ivory. They are actually inlaid on both sides, so when you turn the knobs the inlay remains visible. Craig. The tuner knob inlays are what I would call "advanced" they were more of a pain than any other inlay, and do take a lot of time! My Living sea guitar has the tuners inlaid as well, with gold stars all over to match the headstock pattern. I don't have any good pics though.. There are about 10 or so variety of shell available, and at least 20 or so stone. three common metals, and tons of plastics. Baked clays are starting to show up in some inlay as well, but I have not gotten into that yet. Craig

I have been cutting with size 1 saws, and of course if I need someting as flat seeming as that I will file it to be perfect. There is nothing "wrong" with filing. The goal is to get as good a cut as possible, but there will always be some filing in a complete piece. The more pieces in the inlay, the more off your going to be on some of them. After you make as good a cut as you can the first time out, then you should only have to file a little. It makes the piece take a little longer to finish, but your making art that should last way beyond you.

Thanks LGM I too always get nervouse when engraving. I am just going to take as much time as I need on the face. Rendering a face of this detail level requires a lot of drawing, redrawing, and patience. Done right it may look pretty good, done a little wrong it will look totally wrong. I would love to help you with the killer whales. I have tried to make an art out of inlaying water. I have a long way to go I think. I can draw it out and map it out materials wise for you. I can even supply some materials if you need it. I'm sure you already saw these right? The water is implied by the silver dust horizon line. This is one of my earlier works, I would most likely if I had to do something similar again do it differently, using extremely thin shell pieces. I debated adding eye detail engraving on any of these, but finally decided that from the distance I am trying to imply on these animals it would look off. I may have been wrong. Not too late to change it on the fretboard, but the headstock and guitar is completed already. Thanks, Craig.

Dave- It was simply drawn using the proper tools. I think many people think of "art" as meaning a drawing is completely freehand drawn without any help or tools. The straightness came from using a ruler side as a drawing straight edge. You'll notice the sword is three seperate pieces divided at the fret lines. I only had a smaller piece of sterling silver so I had to make the sword long enough by cutting three seperate pieces. I then glued them together and took the glued edge and sanded away any anomolies from that. When the frets go in you'll never see the lines, they'll be cut through. It will look like one long piece of material, especially since silver is completely homogenouse in color. And of course if any part of your work is not up to standards, do it over! Craig

Hi Guys. I'm going to moderate my own post here.. Thanks everyone for the wonderful compliments! It's far from done too, so that's real nice of everyone- SECONDLY.. PLEASE .. can we stop talking about the female figure in the image? Please.. Look at it for the inlay, not the woman. I may have not given her the best proportions either. I can tell you from my photos she is a very beautiful person! Wait until it's done to get an opinion, then when you have it.. if it's not really positive please known how you feel, and don't share. I was hesitant to post this before it was completed. Please respect that. thanks to you all. I am not unhappy, or upset. Just giving you a bit of thought.. renablistic, I like the DNA idea, it sounds very cool! Maybe I can help you with the design.. Thanks all. Craig.

Thanks Guys. All I can say about the body shape is that is came off a real photo, and it's not altered in any way. I am not going to post the image due to it being a private photo. Thanks for understanding. DHC is Dave Howard Custom guitars. www.dhcguitars.com He built my killer whales theme inlaid guitar for me, and he's a great freind and luthier. His guitars are beautiful. I have done a few inlays for him, that are on his site and mine. I also helped design a sleek body carve he now uses. I'm doing this guitar for him as payment for him building me my whales guitar. The body is getting a rather large DIFFERENT looking dragon as well. The less it looks like any other dragon inlay I have seen so far the better. To me they all look alike. I am really going for a modern fantasy art type look. Sleek, lethal, yet diginified and intelligent. More photos as this progresses. And as far as writing a book goes thanks, but I rather make inlays! You can probably go back in all our posting and get plenty from that. Craig.

Rhoads56 is right. The most common way to work with spanning inlay through the frets is to inlay normally, re-slot the fret line, then back-bevel the inlay a bit to remove some shell so the frets don't crack it going in, remove the tangs from the frets and then glue in place. Cutting the inlay with the fret slots in mind takes a lot longer, but the payback is the fretboard is completely workable after the inlay is installed. I plan on doing this from here on out depending on how busy I get. Right now my waiting list is only about 2 months, but it's geting to be longer. The inlay shouldn't effect the tone at all, although with a fully inlaid board like that PRS there is no wood left. It may make the board feel different, I would think faster, your playing surface is all shell and stone. Craig

Here is my curent "very complex" project- the lady of the lake on a DHC custom fretboard. The old shell dots were removed, the new inlay and ebony pieces added, and the radius is something compound 16 or so (maybe 12, I never check- jackson style? ) to 10 as you go down. The "lady" is really Dave's wife, Jeannie. He sent me photos of her in variouse poses, and I worked from them for the art you see here. Basically she was a model for the inlay. I still need to inlay the very bottom water ripples, the "magic" going out from her hands around the sword, and finish the engraving. I normally inlay everything at once, but I wanted to see how the ebony hole fill pieces would look after the initial inlay. I will blend them in after with the "magic" (gold, silver, gold/silver wire, some small shell) and you'll never know there was any holes plugged. Of course I can't go near the engraved areas with sandpaper, so it will take that much longer. Her right hand and arm is done, parts of the left are done, and drawn in with pencil, I will re-draw each engraved area untill I am happy. That could take hours. The hair is done, and the water is engraved around each piece to "bolden" the inlay. I do this with every piece normally. It evens out any slightly odd seams, and makes the pieces stand out a lot more as distinct. When done properly it does not implie "gap" at all. It blends everything together. The engraving you see here took already at least 5-6 hours. I am saving the face for last, as that may take up to 12 or more hours alone. Pics again soon. Craig

I myself have been looking for a very long time. There is just nothing there on the topic. I read the book "Art of Engraving" by MEEKS, which is really the "bible" on the topic, but it is really for metals. Almost nothing solid, save more than a few paragraphs exists for engraving pearl. Q) methods of transferring the image to the inlay (when you have one to copy) A) I draw it on by hand using a led pencil, hardness #8 to get good lines. If you sand out the inlay to anything higher than 400 grit the pencil lead won't stick well. It's too smooth. Polish out your inlays to no higher than 300-350, very very well, to get all the scrathches out, then draw/engrave. You can go over it a little afterwards with a slightly higher grit, but no more than 400, and for very very little, or you'll sand away all your work. Q) how to hold the graver? 1) The graver is sharp when you can place the point it on a fingernail and it doesn't move. It grips. Good even sharpness is the key, as any odd areas on the graver will make for messy lines, and not track properly. I hold the graver wooden base in the palm of my hand, and keep the point at about a 25-45 degree angle when pushing through the shell. My fingers are wrapped around it on both sides My second hand index finger as a "backer" to make it track under control. The higher the angle, the deeper the initial cut, so it's best to keep the angle real slight (= lower angle) until you get a good single cut to start on. Q) which direction to push/pull? A) You never pull. It's only push, and very light pushing at that. The graver should slowly glide across the pearl surface as you carefully an precisely guid it. This goes for any parts of your inlay- curves, etc.. you may have to reposition yourself to get curves clean, etc.. but it's all straight push, to varying depth, etc.. Q) how to do curved lines A) see above- no special hints/tricks here. Sorry. It takes ALOT of time, and patience. Q) how deep to engrave on first, second pass A) Shallow enough to make a line accurate to your image the first pass, then depending on how bold the line needs to be, slightly deeper the next. Each pass deepens the cut, therefore widening the lines. If your first cut is a little sloppy, you can even it out on the next pass, but remember there is no going back and starting over. Diligence is the key here. Q) how to do large indentations (like a filled in circle) A) Literally scratch away the entire area, and fill with your filler. Be careful to make your outer pattern exactly the way you want it. The inside dark areas aren't as important, but for solid black you'll need to get every little bit below the surface level of the outside surrounding pearl, otherwise white will show through. More on engraving soon. I may post pics from a current non-completed project which is in the final engraving stages. Craig

I normally re-cut after, or have the luthier do it. There are benefits to both methods, especially when inlaying into a fretboard with a binding on it already. You'll be forced to go through the nice clean binding if you re-slot it with a saw. I have seen it done both ways, cutting the slot previouse to inlaying it takes longer, and more acuracy, but the results are worth it when it comes to refret jobs and general maintenance. Craig

There is inlay, and overlay. The materials you are describing are for overlay. It's actually a more common form of shell art, but NOT on guitars. You draw the pattern on to the shell veneer, cut it with an exacto knife, and carefully place it in the desired location. You then finish over it, and finish to the proper level as to make it look seamless. This is the technique used on a lot of japanese doors, and other "home style" woodcrafts. It can look very detailed and extravagant when done by an expert, but it's NOT inlay. Inlay requires routing a hole to place the materials into, normally at least .03 to .07" thick in American inlay. Many eastern inlayers use a thinner .02-.03 thickness shell, but thier work looks correspondingly cheaper as well. The colors are less, reflectivity, etc.. lots of this type of work is on EBAY from far east sellers. Malaysia, Thialand, etc.. You'll also notice the art is typical of eastern cultures. Lots of flowers, dragons, tigers, etc.. It's very nice work, but not what most westerners normally expect in quality. Fender and a lot of other companies have been using overlay shell for logos for a while, from a distance it looks like inlay, but up close their is no comparison. Craig Lavin