The Luthier Community

Ray,

Very nice work....looking just super.....what supplier on ebay did you use? I would like some of that.

Tom

Tom,

He goes by Inlaidartist. I bought my stuff from him over a year ago, and at that time he had a wide selection and great prices. Haven't shopped for abalone since then though.

Raymond

Added: I never paid full price if it said 'or best offer'. He was very reasonable and usually took my offer without negotiation.

Pretty slick, Ray - You stayin' in today? I sure am!



E

Thanks Eben,

Technically, I'm telecommuting today...

Kept mumbling to myself all the way home last night... when I wasn't yelling that 'you people are idiots!!!'. I was amazed at how many people came to a full stop ajacent to an accident on an icy two lane overpass with people coming up behind them... luckily there were police yelling at them too on all but the first one. 3 cars skidding out of control, two doing a 360, one hitting the overpass wall, but unfortunately none of them hit the idiot who stopped.

Raymond

I hear ya, Bro;

I went home at mid-day -
I've had enough experience with how folks drive in this stuff that I really don't want any part of it!

E

Great job Raymond.

I have no experience with the abalone type purfling . In the photo of the strips next to the guitar it looks like they are wavy, but not the shape of the guitar. Is it somehow flexible? I had thought that you took straight pieces and somehow cut them into little pieces to make the curves. I don't get it.

Lefty

Lefty,

The stuff on the cardboard is made up of 1 inch long pieces, and if you took all the strips and put them end to end it would resemble the outline of a dreadnaught. I had to take the individual pieces and fit them to this outline which is basically a parlor with an oversized bottom. Where my curves exceeded the curve of the piece I basically took a srewdriver and pushed it in until it cracked at the point of the curve that didn't fit. In most cases it cracks in such a way you can't see the crack in the end.

On the rosettes I used to match the ends of the pieces for both color and direction so that the cracks wouldn't show, but I've found that after all that work I can't tell the difference so I pretty much just go by shape now.

Raymond

Thanks Raymond. Gonna have to try that some day.

Lefty