Inlay with difficult pieces

[John Coloccia]

When I first read this thread, all I could think of was "Man, it would be soooo much faster to laser the headstock and pearl... assembly would take 2-3 minutes followed by a sanding!". Glad to know you're heading down that road.

We tried a couple of times but haven't gotten any stellar results yet. The MOP seems to almost want to melt, and the edges are not clean. We need to play with it some more. The industry is still mostly cutting shell with mills or by hand (believe it or not). Still, it's fun and in the mean time I can hone my skills. I always wanted to become good at inlay work, and I'll only get there by doing it, so I don't mind doing it by hand for the time being until we figure it out, or I break down and buy a CNC mill

[John Coloccia]

Read again,John,I did a bunch of editing. The tracing paper kept the whole mess from falling apart. Needless to say,it was a very delicate process.

Yes, I just re-read it. Now I understand. It was exactly all those cross grain parts I was thinking about. Just imagining working with it I can just see exactly where everything wants to break! The tracing paper makes sense. Once it's glued down, it's tough as nails. I may try this technique on my next headstock. It will be walnut so this one really does need to fit pretty well. I think I'll try the dremel-in-a-drill press technique like you had mentioned (where you move the veneer, not the tool), and I'll try match sawing it as though I were doing marquetry. I'll even try some 6/0 blades. Smallest I have is 3/0, and I already break those every couple of minutes. I wonder how 6/0 will be?

[george wilson]

I had a customer who I used my self made automatic tuning peg lathe to make pegs for. He made lute kits. This was in the late 70's. He showed me a new lute top he was making. It had a very cleanly cut rose. It was a big secret how he was getting the roses cut,but he couldn't help telling me how he was getting them cut by laser. I noticed that the rose was a little peculiar looking,not being quite round. It turned out that the laser was being bounced off a mirror,and entering the lute rose at a slight angle.

I don't know. The use of lasers,cnc,and all that have their place,but for me it just destroys the craft of making something by hand. At the same time,use of technology makes our lives better in many ways, making things cheaper and more available,even keeping us alive longer. Still,when I see things like otherwise nice wooden rules with graduations and names cut by laser,it leaves me cold. A confusing issue for me to deal with,I suppose.

[Dan Hintz]

We tried a couple of times but haven't gotten any stellar results yet. The MOP seems to almost want to melt, and the edges are not clean.

Consider lasering the neck completely but only engraving an outline in the MOP. You can still cut the MOP by hand, but the laser engraved outline will keep it consistent from unit to unit. It should fit right down into the lasered neck.

EDIT: If you need contrast in the MOP for the outline, do a quick spritz of black paint over the top and laser away the outline in the paint.

[John Coloccia]

Consider lasering the neck completely but only engraving an outline in the MOP. You can still cut the MOP by hand, but the laser engraved outline will keep it consistent from unit to unit. It should fit right down into the lasered neck.

EDIT: If you need contrast in the MOP for the outline, do a quick spritz of black paint over the top and laser away the outline in the paint.

Funny you should say that. An idea I had was to have him laser frisket. Then I could just put that on the MOP, and the negative on the headstock, and then just cut to that. The hand cutting is really not that bad. The scribing and aligning of fiddly stuff like this is time consuming and not very fun...it's just tedious. If all I had was a sheet I could put down with some alignment fiducials, and then lift and leave behind a pattern, I would be pretty happy, and this is where we're headed I think.

[Dave MacArthur]

Wow that guitar from George Wilson... just amazing. I spent a night once reading everything I could on your work, George, and every time I see those pics I'm just awed. I know you produced a lot of work that you don't have pictures of, and it's a great loss. Puts me in mind of Jameel Abraham's work (think I got that name right), both are great art.

[raul segura]

Here is a great and simple build and a little less pricy than having your own laser, perhaps just a little more hands on than a CNC etc. etc.. etc...

Pantograph
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PQlD...eature=related

Adjusting a drawer hing for CNC like work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPkwI...eature=related

[raul segura]

wrong post