Inlay Questions

Nomad

Been thinking about inlay for my lap steel project, and I'm not sure whether to go for green abalone or white-or-gold mother of pearl. I'm planning to black the fretboard and headstock front, so contrast should be fine. My intention is to do dots and a logo of some sort. I have a few questions...

Is there any difference in the way white and gold mother of pearl reflect the light? In the photos I've seen of the gold so far, it looks somewhat flat. Some of the white does as well, but there are plenty of others where it's caught the light nicely and the shimmering pattern thing can be seen.

Are there any differences in what the materials are like to work? At the moment, for the logo, I'm expecting to saw out the rough shape and then tidy up the edges with files/sanding. The sawing will probably done on a bit of wood with a vee-notch, clamped the edge of the bench, using a jeweller's saw.

When I put the inlays into the wood, should I leave it a little proud and work it down until it's flush? The fretbaord and headstock will be flat. If it's worked down, how do I get the polish back into the inlay?

The blacking will be done using Fiebings oil dye for leather. Is it better to do that before fitting the inlays, or fit the inlays fitted as well? If the latter, does the inlay clean up okay? Are any of the inlay materials likely to be harder to clean?

And, is it better to do all this before or after fitting the fretboard and headstock plate?

octatonic

The easiest way is to laser cut the materials so the inlay fits the *stuff it is being inlayed into* precisely.

No major manufacturer does it by hand anymore.

Given you will be doing it by hand I would work off the guitar as much as you can because if you ruin it then you just have to work on that piece.

If you mess up a neck then you are going to be trying to fix it, if you can't then you will be making a new neck.

Yes, put it in proud and use a scraper to get it flush- I use a stanley blade (actually a different brand that uses Sheffield steel).

What will you be doing for fingerboard markers?

I like using round dots because you can just use a drill press and fit them easily.

Make sure you use an electronic vernier calliper to make sure your drill bits are exactly the same size as the dots- often they won't be- which is why I have multiple sets of drill bits in 0.1mm increments.

It will be VERY obvious if there is a gap but this is where the luthier's best friend comes in handy... dust and glue.

I prefer super glue, as it is colourless but you can also use aliphatic glue like titebond.

Say you want to fill a gap in laying a piece of maple into an ebony board.

I would usually make some ebony dust from an offcuts- make the dust by using abrasive paper to sand down the wood to dust.

Then stick some of the dust (a tiny amount) into the gap (I use some teflon toothpicks from Stew Mac), then use the toothpicks to drop small amounts of runny super glue onto the dust.

If you are making it up with titebond then I generally prepare it in a bottle cap, then use toothpicks to drop the gluey-woody stuff into the hole, often covering it over the top, letting it dry and scraping it down.

As for how you prepare the materials- To make the channels I use a dremel with the flexible extension mandrel and some very small cutters designed for inlay work. Doing it by hand with a saw is going to be a massive pain in the ass. If you do it this way then make it oversize and don't be afraid to use abrasive paper and go very, very slowly. 

This is painstaking work to do by hand- you might spend 4+ hours on a very small inlay.

A lot of luthier's outsource this sort of thing to specialists- PRS birds, for example, were never done in house at PRS in the early days- they were outsourced to a company called (IRRC)  'Pearl Works'.

As to materials- plastic is far easier to work with than MOP, but MOP generally looks much better.

Nomad

Thanks Octatonic. It's something I'd like to do by hand, even if it is time consuming - it's as much about trying the techniques as it is about having the inlays. I'm not planning anything too fancy for the logo, and will be aiming for something that doesn't have any sharp corners - the pocket will probably be done with a 2mm carbide slot drill, so 1mm radius. I might look into the Dremel flexible extension thing. The plan is to get a few bits so that I have stuff to practice with first.

Round dots for the fretboard, and I have a micrometer and digital calipers, and drill bits in 0.1 increments. Also have various milling cutters which will produce a flat bottom, although I'm not sure if that will be much use unless the dots are flat on both sides. I guess a normal drill bit might be better since it leaves a known height around the edge with a dimple in the middle.

I'll have an offcut of both the fretboard and headstock plate, so I can try things on those first.

I'm aware of the dust and glue thing. The little Bosch sander should be quite good at collecting the dust.

octatonic

Sounds like you are ready to go then

Good luck, as you can tell I hate inlay work- I do as little as I feel I can get away with.

It is primarily what is prompting my laser cutter purchase.

Nomad

I can well imagine how tedious it would be if you're making instruments professionally (which you appear to be). I may well change my tune once I've done one...

WezV

octatonic said:

Sounds like you are ready to go then

Good luck, as you can tell I hate inlay work- I do as little as I feel I can get away with.

It is primarily what is prompting my laser cutter purchase.

I hope you have checked the viability of that.  I don't know how far things have moved but about 10 years ago I had an email exchange with  this Chuck Erikson regarding cutting pearl with lasers.  He warned against it for pearl as the laser refracts around inside the pearl and you are left with a pile of burnt calcium.   I have had very thin pearl cut with a laser successfully, thin enough to just sit under the lacquer, but not proper inlay thickness.   I know you can get 1mm pearl laser cut for inlays, but that seems too thin to me.   A mate with a laser cutter had a go, but I decided not to continue experimenting after we had wasted about £80 worth of abalone.

anyway - Nomad's questions:

• Shell varies like wood varies.  Some has better figure than others depending on the quality of the shell, but also the location it comes from.  The heart (the bit the creature attaches to) is always more figured than the rest of the shell
• Gold pearl is often mostly white with the gold colour only on one side.   its okay to leave your inlays proud when installing  but be aware they can change appearance very quickly when levelling off.  Abalone may loose its features, gold pearl may end up completely white.
  
• The shell will look brighter from one direction, spend some time turning them around to find the best direction and always have this side pointing towards the player.  You don;t have to do this, but if you use abalone or black pearl dots its not unusual to have them disappear from certain angles.
• They all work pretty much the same, but be aware that more figure will make it more brittle
• Glues - I always use a drop of superglue for locating them.   I have moved away from superglue for filling the gaps, especially on fretboards.   Superglue and dust will polish up shinier than the surrounding wood.   Its fine under a finish, but less so on a fretboard.  obviously no gaps is better, but I use Z-poxy and dust for mine.  whatever you use, it will becomes more visible with time because the wood will always age differently to the filler.  I would also advise you make sure the filler is black if you are staining the fretboard.  Fiebings seems to work on epoxy, not on superglue
• I normally sand the whole fretboard and inlays up to 12000g micromesh 
• Rub the fretboard down with 0000 liberon steel wool after staining.  The pearl will clean up beautifully.  
• You can do the work away from the guitar, but be aware you amy have some more sanding and cleanup to do once its all glued on the guitar - its fine, once they are in you can rework your final finish a few times, just don't do any engraving until you know all your other processes are finished with.

octatonic

WezV said:

octatonic said:

Sounds like you are ready to go then

Good luck, as you can tell I hate inlay work- I do as little as I feel I can get away with.

It is primarily what is prompting my laser cutter purchase.

I hope you have checked the viability of that.  I don't know how far things have moved but about 10 years ago I had an email exchange with  this Chuck Erikson regarding cutting pearl with lasers.  He warned against it for pearl as the laser refracts around inside the pearl and you are left with a pile of burnt calcium.   I have had very thin pearl cut with a laser successfully, thin enough to just sit under the lacquer, but not proper inlay thickness.   I know you can get 1mm pearl laser cut for inlays, but that seems too thin to me.   A mate with a laser cutter had a go, but I decided not to continue experimenting after we had wasted about £80 worth of abalone.

Yes I have- but I won't be cutting pearl on it- you are right, it doesn't work.

I don't precisely know the process with Pearl Works, I suspect they use very small routers bits, probably computer controlled.

My interests lie with cutting wood and using contrasting colours- so maple or spruce inlaid in dark woods like ebony/rosewood or rosewood and ebony inlaid in maple.

This is one done by a colleague- maple inlaid into rosewood.

Headstock veneer was later cut to fit the maple piece, also laser cut and it worked great, just slotted in without any repair needed.

There are other reasons for the laser cutter- making templates and slotting fingerboards, particularly fan fret/multiscale.

Plus, I just want one- it has freaking lasers.

WezV

Yeah, pearl works use CNC mini routers. I think they have some vids on the tube.



Laser cutters are good for pyrography too.

WezV

these were all done on a laser for me by Doug from Parable guitars, including some truss rod samples, various plastic and wood logo discs, rosewood in maple fretboard and  the thin shell logo's for putting under lacquer.  he also did my a fanned fret fretboard with the slots  not going all the way to the ends.  definitely a useful tool

BigMonka

Have you read the tutorial that @Andyjr1515 wrote? I like ve Andy's swift inlays http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/30729/quick-tutorial-on-doing-inlays#latest