MIMF

Here's a computer mock-up I'm making for a customer.
The question is, what is a good inlay material for red rose? I've found some stone that would work, but I've never inlaid stone and don't know much about working with it. I haven't found a shell that would work. There's plenty of red colored woods, but I'm afraid they will fade or oxidize into a darker color and get lost in the fretboard. It needs to jump out. Ideas?

You could try dying bone red. I don't know how well it would work, or how well unfinished bone would hold up on the fret board with regard to sweat and dirt, though you could coat it with CA or something. I've inlaid bone on head stocks, and dyed a bone nut black with ink. Just a thought.

Peter Wilcox wrote:You could try dying bone red. I don't know how well it would work, or how well unfinished bone would hold up on the fret board with regard to sweat and dirt, though you could coat it with CA or something. I've inlaid bone on head stocks, and dyed a bone nut black with ink. Just a thought.

That's something i had not thought of. Thanks for the idea

You'll want to experiment with the depth of dye on the bone, as inlay material is often set proud of the surface and then sanded with the fretboard radius. I've bought some Fiebing's leather dye as a stand-in for TransTint (at about 1/4 the price), so that would be a less expensive route to take for experimenting.

Check out some of the stuff available at Woodcraft, like InLace inlay products. There are also acrylic pen turning blanks that come in a wide variety of bright colors.

Also, somewhere here on the MIMF is a thread on bright red inlay material started by David King. He needed to make inlays on a bass fretboard that looked like drops of blood. I saw it, and it was definitely convincing!

Have you considered Corian (aka "solid surfacing material")? Most manufacturers and kitchen cabinet vendors have 2"x2" or larger samples available. It's comes in 1/2" and 1/4" thicknesses, glues well with CA, and is easy as pie to shape and thickness. If you search for "red corian" on ebay you'll find a bunch of options - one of the first I saw was for 5"x8" pieces for about $8.00. Be careful with veined patterns, as they can surprise you when sanding. What starts out as a nice subtle vein can darken or lighten significantly as you sand down into the material.

JC Whitney wrote:Have you considered Corian (aka "solid surfacing material")? Most manufacturers and kitchen cabinet vendors have 2"x2" or larger samples available. It's comes in 1/2" and 1/4" thicknesses, glues well with CA, and is easy as pie to shape and thickness. If you search for "red corian" on ebay you'll find a bunch of options - one of the first I saw was for 5"x8" pieces for about $8.00. Be careful with veined patterns, as they can surprise you when sanding. What starts out as a nice subtle vein can darken or lighten significantly as you sand down into the material.

That's actually a really good idea and I now feel dumb for not having thought of it. Thanks to everyone so far who has helped.

I used a sample of Indus Red Corian and retouched the mock up. I like the deeper color and more textured look than just the flat bright red.

I have also been looking for red. Here are 3 possibilities:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/very-thi ... 21759.html

http://www.rothkoandfrost.com/celluloid ... oid-sheet/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G4 ... z_bw_c_x_1

Here is an example of what the crushed red coral can look like:

https://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/produc ... rings/wood

I have heard of guys using old CD's.
I think if you look around you may still find colored CD's.
I'm not sure how red they may look if inlayed into dark wood.
Just a thought....

The Inlace material was dead easy to mix up and slather into the laser-routed cavities. I had to darken the bright red of the Inlace using some powdered red pearlescent additive. Also on open-pored fingerboards the inlace will get into the grain. I sealed my board and the cavities with a couple of coats of CA just to make sure the red wouldn't migrate into the end-grain. If you have access to someone with a laser cutter they'd be done with this in a matter of minutes. If you don't have access to a CNC engraver or laser then the inlace will only look as good as your cavities so you might be better off with the traditional methods.

That's a nice red. It looks like it works well in the finer areas.

Thanks Barry,
I can't imagine having done three of these inlays any other way. Many of the cavities were pinhole sized.

Thanks everyone for your ideas. This project is still a couple months away, but I just wanted to get a head start on some of the ideas.

A little bit off subject, but I was looking around for another type of ablam that I think I saw (may have been in the preliminary stage) but I found this visual tool on the Duke of Pearl's website that simulates what different types of pearl look like in 3 different woods. Click on the "Materials Finder" button on the right.

http://www.dukeofpearl.com

Barry Daniels wrote:A little bit off subject, but I was looking around for another type of ablam that I think I saw (may have been in the preliminary stage) but I found this visual tool on the Duke of Pearl's website that simulates what different types of pearl look like in 3 different woods. Click on the "Materials Finder" button on the right.

http://www.dukeofpearl.com

Fantastic. Thanks Barry

I've used red Reconstituted Stone. Pretty easy to work with.