Clavin

Drak, Decide on your image, then your materials/color choices. Not vice versa. You'll have more direction if you have a goal in mind then just waiting for colors to dictate what to do. Of course that's also a big part of it, but it's most liklely best to think in terms of image-then materials. Craig L.

On wooden inlays: Treat them the same exact way as any other inlay. Tips- 1) Different woods will chip and fray at the edges as you cut. Rosewood is very oily and dense, maple is very fragile and can crack, others just be careful. 2) When you glue your patterns to the wood, add some sort of backer to it that you can easily remove without sanding it off. I use 3M tack glue. It backs the material, and will come off with a razor blade. You never want to soak woods in anything. Scraping them gently is easier. I normally just glue my patterns on, and smear glue over the backs, then scrape the back clean after it's cut. It really makes that much difference during cutting. If you don't back them plan on losing large areas out from the bottom and having serious frays and cracks. 3) Lighter woods will get dirty fast on a highly played guitar. 4) Soft woods are only going to look good on headstocks or areas that will be under a finish. Putting them into a fingerboard is a BAD idea. They will wear down faster than the board. 5) You may want to use a thicker blade on some dense woods. 6) Using true veneers is a pain. Most are designed for overlay, not inlay. Try to get your woods and thickness them on your own with a thickness sander. I inlay woods at .06", just as thick as my shell and metals. Good luck, take your time, I am here to help. Please read the tutorial on the blue shark inlay about how to make a basic inlay. I know it's out there, and it includes everything you need to know I think, and it's NOT "just about dots" Best. Craig L.

Very cool LGM. I am always impressed by your concept ideas and execution. I saw a whole hand painted back on an acoustic guitar at the last ASIA symposium and it really turned some heads. It was maple, and the blending worked amazingly well. Keep up the creative work! Craig Lavin

Dave if you mean it I may have one for you... I'll e-mail you soon. I need to finish up an article first.. Thanks. I hope you are doing well. Craig

Start out by making your drawing as perfect as possible. I draw with a #8 hardness technical lead pencil. It makes an extremely thin line in your pattern to cut. I also cut with #3 blades, and for this piece I went down to #6, just to make sure some pieces were perfect shaped. Other than that it comes down to cutting skills. Fear not- the more you cut, the better you get. Go slow. I even slow myself down these days. I make sure every piece fits perfect, if it doesn't I re-cut, or file. Filing is good, but if a piece is undercut and there is a non-acceptible gap, I re-cut. It doesn't matter to me if I waste a piece of pearl. This is my life. The final art is permanent. Any mistakes are there forever. 1) Draw well 2) Look at the drawing to make sure it's perfect 3) Look at your model to make sure the drawing is accurate (reference photos, etc..) 4) Finalize the drawing- Draw well- did I mention the inlay is only as good as your drawing? 5) Cut slow 6) Cut clean 7) Assemble your pattern- delete any bad cut pieces, or gapped areas 8) Re-cut any needed pieces 9) Glue the inlay together- face down so no surface colors are lost 10) Rout clean- take your time. I have started to rout out-side in, to make sure I don't go outside the lines as I am normally pretty burnt out near finishing. This way I am more on my game where it matters most- the edges. 11) Glue the inlay as flush as possible to the wood. That saves on sanding time 12) Draw your engraved patterns. Re-draw them until they are perfect- just like in stage one- you back to drawing again. Take your time and do it right 13) Be a perfectionist. Few people are. When YOU are you work will stand out. Then so will you. Good luck. Craig L.

That's all engraved. The neck and front of the arm is stipple effect. You take the graver, or a very very sharp scribe, and just simply dot out the area, then fill with india ink, or filler, etc.. The arm line is an engaved line as well, but not a single solid line. I wanted to give the effect of shading more than total seperation. All of the blacdk lines on the jacket are engraved, and the ziper is a silver piece, also engraved. The main jacket area is a piece of black pearl chosen with more white in the middle, with a leather-like grain to it. I wanted the jacket to look like it was reflecting her image back up from the light. I spent a lot of time choosing the pieces of pearl for this one. I normally take a few hours making sure the pearl has the pattern qualities that go with the image best. Just any pearl pieces would look random. I also glued up the inlay face down, then inlaid that deeper than the shallowest piece, to keep all of my shell patterns intact so they wouldn't sand through. The throat is a big piece of pattern free black pearl, in the "off" position, so it doesn't reflect that much in the viewed positon. Craig L.

"Shadowed" as you call it. The negative space reinforces the brightness of the front and top. It's actually a piece of ebony pierced (drilled) and the small gold pearl pieces are inset into that. It's more time consuming than just routing into the existing ebony, but the amount of control and the clean-ness of it is paramount to simply routing by far. Thanks! Craig L.

Hi guys. Everyone knows what it must feel like to be in the spotlight, I tried to capture that mood here with this inlay. It's on an acoustic. The other two holes are now drilled out, I just left them un-drilled for this photo to get the entire image in. Materials are gold pearl, pink mussel, white river pearl, black pearl, silver, mother of pearl, mother of pearl grav-lam, ebony, and the black epoxy effect I used in the wolf and moon was used again here in a few spots, such as the eyelid, etc.. Thanks for looking! Craig Lavin www.handcraftinlay.com

Well Myka once again your wisdom comes through There is a big difference between breaking new ground, and just trying to shortcut the proper methods to do things easier and fatser. Many new guys here are out to do something easy and seemingly original, when in reality it's just substandard methods to attempt to "fake" an inlay. I am not bashing creativity, or trying out new things, but any routing and filling with liquid is not inlay. It's hole filling. Learn inlay the right way, then start breaking ground. There is new ground to break. It's not easy, but real creativity with methods never is. Keep on trying! Craig L

Can you show us the image? You would be surprised at what isn't impossible. I may be able to guid you more if I can see it. Thanks Craig Lavin www.handcraftinlay.com

I have seen inlays painted before. There is absolutely no reason why not too as long as you are sure the paint will work with your sealer and finish. You can also engrave details, etc.. but under a finish on a headstock there are a LOT of different things you can do. Good luck. Craig Lavin

Don't worry about it. The material is red brass- or dix-gold. It looks just like gold but doesn't cost as much. Of course it will tarnish but that's easily fixed. The depth is most likely .06 deep. It will NOT effect the tone. Not noticeably anyway. Craig Lavin

Some possibly very obviouse things to remember when doing this type of thing- (I'm just putting this hear in case you get too busy with details, and forget!) 1) You have to use clear CA for the inlay glue- epoxy will filter out too much light, OR use thicker epoxy just around the edges, and leave the bottom cavity open so more light can travel through unfiltered. But then your inlay is un-backed, and more fragile. 2) The CA will want to find any channel it can, so your light wire route has to be sealed before the inlay goes in. 3) Use NON-figured even colored materials if using pearls. Figuring will through off the light even-ness. Of course you may be going for that look. Good luck. Craig Lavin

Thanks again Guys! Wow. This posting has definitly taken on a life for itself...It keeps popping up. I am here at the ASIA symposium ( Association od Stringed Instrument Artisans) In Westminster Md. I'll check in here and there to see how you inlay guys are doing! Best. Craig L

Hi Mike. This has been addressed. You just need to make sure the shell is thick enough to not sand through, or use multiple small pices around the curves in the inlay. Look in the pinned area for a previose thread post on this. C. Lavin No special jigs or rigs are needed at all.

No problem I'm off to the Associtaion of Stringed Instrument Artisans symposium in Maryland. If any of you are going I'll see you there. Back in a week. I still may be able to post from my PDA if they have a wireless hookup. Craig L.

I don't believe so, and It wouldn't work well that way. You have way, way more control over your cutting than any routing. The materials used for inlay are often way harder than most woods, and even if woods are used in the inlay itself you have the ability to sand and file to shape. When you route that's all there is. Any mistakes and it's filler, or in this case a mis-shaped inlay. C.Lavin

Give the girls at Rescue a chance. I don't know when you sent your e-mail, but they typically are slow on the response, and they are getting ready for the A.S.I.A symposium now. Just keep trying to contact them. They will most likely ship. Craig L.

Many of you have questions about recon stone. This is an intermediate to advanced material to work with. Recon stone is real semiprecious stone of various types that is crushed into powdered form, and mixed with epoxies. There are about 15-20 types on the market, maybe more or less. The result is a brick of material that looks a lot like the real stone. In some cases the appearance is better than others. Malachite looks just like real stone Malachite, Leopard jasper still needs a lot of work! The workability of the different types varies greatly with each type. Malachite , obsidian, and some other of the brownish dark stones seem to be very dense, and cut very easily, moderately clean, and don't break too easily during cutting. All the recon stones fray at least a little the edges when cut, and form a powder. Stone types such as turquoise, gaspeit, and some of the lighter ones (although sugalite- purple- and lapis- dark blue, are both very brittle) can either snap during cutting, or just from your finger pressure during cutting if your holding them down too hard. Many times using just a 03 blade can break them during cutting. Recon stone is available from a few dealers. Some (one place as of this writing) thickness it to inlay standards- .06 or so, and the others sell it mainly for knife handle work in slabs at 1/8th inch thickness the minimum. Thicknessing it can be done with a thickness drill press system, or a mini thickness sander used for model shipbuilding. It is better to work with it at a thickness of about .07 or .08", due to how fragile it is at times. Recon stone engraves easily, and is very colorful. It adds color to your inlays that just doesn't exist anywhere else in nature. It's a semiprecious material as well; therefore retaining the qualities most like to see in inlay- regarding using exquisite materials in their art. Thin or fragile areas in your pattern need to be cut one edge first- then reinforced/glued by the surrounding material, then finish cut, then patterned out for working. This method prevents breaking fragile parts as the surrounding media already supports them. Good luck! Craig Lavin www.Handcraftinlay.com

Yes with the fingers. And- the moon itself is a large single piece of fuax ivory. Basically plastic Not the most "preciouse" material in the world, but the image means more than the materials to me. Craig L.

Rich? Depends on your definition. I'm far from world class poor, but I still have a day job, and I am working very hard on doing inlays full time. I am happy, have a beautiful wife and son, a cool cat, and I get to work on guitars and realize my visions clearly, so I guess I am pretty rich! Sorry I don't know of any UK companies. I know most here in the states wil sjip internationally. Do a google search of course! Best of luck, and thanks. C.Lavin

Rescue pearl now sells recon stone in inlay grade thicknesses. They are THE best for stone. Period. Recon stone is so soft it can be cut with a jewelers saw. You don't need a "stone" cutter, It's real stone dust mixed with epoxy, not solid stone. It's on their home page- go there now young jedi... www.rescuepearl.com Good luck. C.Lavin

Sorry about leaving you guys hanging! Here's how it is. Some were close, others were closer, but it's this- Stew-Mac black epoxy dabbed very gently with the fingertips. Some areas came out too dark, and it's not as "moon" looking as I wanted, but the nice thing is after it dries you can easily sand it off and start over again until your happy! Thanks for playing! More soon Craig Lavin ww.handcraftinlay.com w

Thanks. Right now I have about a 3-4 month wait for bigger jobs, but still handle small things pretty quickly. The process, which I must say is pretty standard for almost any inlay artist is this: 1) Talk about ideas 2) Take a drawing deposit- draw out ideas- change to clients desires/edit. 3) Take half deposit- begin inlay 4) Complete inlay- gather remaining payments- ship. Normally my clients give me full choice over materials, and most times even the art. and to be frank if people want to start telling me how to use colors, etc.. they can go to someone else Of course I left out some details, but basically that's it. Craig L

Close, but not yet guys! All possible methods though. This one was really easier than those, and WAY less time consuming. It does look like scrim though. Thats cool. Fingerprints was closest yet! C.Lavin