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If you’re just now joining us, be sure and check out part I and part II of this 3‑part series on mother of pearl guitar inlays techniques by Guitar Inlays Headquarters guest writer Sean Barry.
Part III–Routing and inlaying
By now you should be finished cutting your chosen pearl pattern, and you are probably tired of repeated trips to the safe deposit box to safeguard the products of your efforts. Undoubtedly you have been staring at the high speed rotary tool and the router base that you purchased after you read Part I and are wondering what they do. Now you shall find out.
Go one last time to your safe deposit box and retrieve your entire inlay set, and arrange it on the table in the proper orientation. Perhaps place all of the inlays on black construction paper so you’ll have a preview of your finished product. With a pencil, number each inlay, and draw a small arrow that points toward the end of the peghead. The arrow is only necessary for radially or bilaterally symmetrical inlays or for identical components of such an arrangement with several identical pieces, such as petals of a flower. Once you have scribed and begun to cut the mortises, you must avoid confusion regarding the precise location and orientation of each piece. From this point forward, you must not change your assigned positions–to do so will result in confusion, broken inlays, and problems during the final inlaying process. This is your last opportunity to recut any inlays that are not up the level of quality of the others, and to rearrange and rematch pieces to best advantage.
The next two steps are really the most critical in the entire inlay process. Up to now, if you broke an inlay or your pattern was uneven in quality, the problems were fixed easily by cutting new pieces. After you (temporarily) glue your inlays in place and scribe their shapes into wood, it will be tricky at best to replace any, so take special care not to break any or to change your mind about placement or replacement.
Glue your inlays in place on the surface to be inlaid. In my experience, this is best done with DUCO cement, because this glue can be dissolved away with acetone. “Spot” the glue lightly in several places on the bottom of the inlay, and press the pearl firmly in place on the surface. Check and double check the inlay position and remember that it may move by itself before the glue sets up. If any do, run a few drops of acetone around the inlay edge, let it soak in for a few seconds, lift the inlay, remove the glue with more acetone, and try again. Script inlays (written text) are especially tricky and obviously fragile, and should be glued thoroughly on the bottom. Endeavor to clean up as much of the glue squeeze-out as possible while it is still soft. Double-check that all inlays are properly positioned (remember: guitars are inlaid on the 9th fret, banjos and mandolins on the 10th), and set the object aside for at least 24 hours. I used to use white glue instead of DUCO, but had problems removing the inlays when the scribing step was done. The only options are to pry up the glued inlays or to soften the glue with water. The former can result too easily in broken inlays, and the latter tends to obscure the scribe lines, so I went to DUCO (which is not perfect but works well enough). Again, once your inlay shapes are inscribed it is essential to use the same inlay that was inscribed, because it is impossible to cut another piece exactly like the original. So don’t break any by being careless or rushed.
The next step, the most critically important in the entire process, is to inscribe the inlay outline into the wood. Use the scribe that we discussed in Part I, and trace around the inlay as close to the edge of the inlay as possible (which should be flush with the edge). Avoid undercutting the inlay, and most of all avoid pushing on the inlay itself with the side of the scribe. At best you could dislodge the pearl (this only happens, according to Mr. Murphy, to complex inlays and then only after the outline is about 50% but less than 75% inscribed), and at worst you could break the inlay. This is a calamity if you have already inscribed any of the outline. If your scribe encounters a mound of glue, scribe carefully over it several times until it separates from the inlay, then scribe the wood. The wood grain will tend to divert the scribe point, so be aware of grain direction changes (relative to the inlay). Ebony is so hard that it is best inscribed by making repeated passes. Be slow, be cautious, be meticulous, be a perfectionist. This is your only chance to do this step correctly, and the quality of your final product depends on the scribed line (and your ability to follow it with the high speed drill). I have tried to deepen the scribed lines later, after the inlay is removed, but with very limited success. Even though the pearl is not supposed to be a “fence,” its presence offers a much better visual limit than does the scribed line alone. Inspect each scribed line carefully and make certain that all are complete and deeply inscribed.
With a glass eyedropper, dribble some acetone carefully around each inlay, but just do one or two at a time. Be extremely careful not to allow acetone to contact finish or plastic bindings, as it will corrode them. Also, heed the fire hazard. After the acetone has contacted the inlay for a few minutes, gentle side pressure will usually dislodge it. Allow very delicate inlays to soak up the acetone for at least 30 minutes, and then use the gentlest side pressure distributed over the entire inlay to dislodge it. Be very careful–it will be almost the ultimate in disheartening feelings to break the inlay now, exceeded only by breaking it later. After each inlay is dislodged, take a moment to clean the residual glue from the inlay bottom and crevices, and renew the label and arrow (the acetone may tend to disperse the pencil marks, and it will dissolve away virtually any ink). Arrange the pieces carefully because you don’t want to make any fitting mistakes during the routing process attributable to trying to fit the wrong piece or orienting an inlay incorrectly.
Frequent variation: Some artisans transfer inlay shapes to the wood surface by coating the wood with a spray adhesive such as 3M, holding the inlay in place by pressing on it with a toothpick or some other slender implement, and coating the entire wood surface with blown or shaken fine white powder such as talcum or corn starch. No scribing is involved, and the inlay shape stands out on the dark wood in stark contrast to the white powder which is bound to the adhesive. This method is easier and less involved than scribing and its adherents maintain that it makes the inlay shape more distinct and easier to follow than scribed lines. Drawbacks are that the powder may not cover evenly which you won’t know until the inlay is lifted, and that when you start your mortise work you may have problems seeing the boundary between black and white clearly, especially if you inadvertently cross into the “no cut” zone. Another concern is that you are potentially aerosolizing fine powders that have unknown potential when inhaled so if you use this technique remember your respiratory protection. Talcum’s purported hazards are controversial and unconfirmed but the material is likely pretty innocuous if not inhaled. Some people are sensitive to talcum so if you start itching when you try this technique you should probably abandon it.
Now comes the three-step routing process, the most difficult part of inlay technique. You must wear goggles and a respirator or N95 mask, you must keep a steady hand, you must STOP if you can’t see clearly where you are cutting, you must cut very slowly, and you must keep the faith in your scribed lines, even though many times they don’t seem to be correct. The first step is to cut the inlay outline deeply with the pointed dental bit (again, the pointed bits offered by Dremel tend to be too large, but they will work for many larger inlays as long as there aren’t tight corners). Use the drill freehand, not in the router base, and cut downward and sideways with the point of the bit from the line into the wood. Hold the drill like a pencil and use the lowest speed, but vary this to suit the hardness of the wood and the part of the outline you are cutting. This is actually the most difficult of the three steps, and it must be done slowly. BE SURE TO CUT INSIDE THE LINE!! Only experience will help you improve, but this step will establish how “close” your inlays are, that is, how much filler space results. Try to cut 2–3 millimeters down into the wood. If you can’t see your scribed line clearly, stop and rearrange the workpiece until you can. Formerly, I used two or three 25-pound bags of #7 lead shot (available from shotgun reloading suppliers) to pad and support a typical finished neck but I suspect that too much lead dust emanated from those bags so I now use sand bags instead. These give great flexibility on repositioning and do not dent or nick the wood. For unshaped necks as described earlier padding is less important but the bags still help for positioning. Cut completely around the inside of each scribed line, and examine each very critically to make sure the initial mortise is of uniform depth and that the corners and tight curves are cut vertically and cleanly. When you are satisfied that all is well, examine the workpiece once again. I have never failed to find spots that needed work, even after two or three examinations.
Next, chuck the router bit or miniature end mill (not the ball-end bit) into the high speed drill, and mount the drill in the router base. Leave enough bit exposed so that it will cut a mortise to about 95% of the thickness of your inlays. To check, use scrap wood and adjust the bit depth so that one of your inlays protrudes just slightly above the mortise. If you are inlaying large pieces in a curved surface (D‑45 hexagons in a guitar, for example), your mortises will be curved as well unless you shim the bottom of the router base with tape and wood veneer so that it rides perpendicular to the peak of the fingerboard. For these inlays, set the cutting depth to 95–98% of the pearl thickness. If you are inlaying a laminate such as Abalam, you must cut your mortises so that the inlay is flush or very nearly so—the outer laminate is very thin and easy to sand through during the leveling process (described later). Laminates obviously won’t usually work across curved surfaces. Straight router bits function best at very high speed, so use the highest speed setting. Use the router bit to remove as much of the inlay mortise wood as possible, but do not encroach the edge too closely because if you slip this bit will cut really fast and do terrible, irreparable damage. For that reason do not try to take large “bites” of the wood in the middle of the mortise either. Work slowly and methodically, and be careful. If you can’t see very clearly, STOP and rearrange the workpiece so that you can. Cut out all of the mortises and then examine them critically. Do not yet attempt to fit the inlays, because the mortises are not quite ready, and you may break an inlay if it binds in a mortise.
Now chuck the tiny ball-end bit into the drill (leave it in the router base) and set the bit depth so that the ball cuts flush with the bottom of the routed mortise, not into it because you don’t want to deepen the mortise anywhere. However, if with this setup the top of the ball is flush or within 1mm of the wood surface, the bit must be set deeper because otherwise it will greatly enlarge your mortises along the edges. You are going to undercut the edges of the mortises, and if the ball is too close to or at the surface it will overcut them too. The ball diameter of this bit should slightly exceed the shank diameter, and should never be smaller than the shank–the shank rubs against the wood “fence” (the edge that you established with the pointed bit) and thus keeps the ball from undercutting too deeply, but it must undercut a little or the inlay may bind when it is inserted. Use low or medium-low speed and go around the edges of your mortises very slowly and carefully with the ball. Be very aware of the previously established mortise limits, and do not exert any pressure against the wall of the mortise with the bit shank. Otherwise the spinning shank will tend to erode the wood and enlarge the mortise, and unfortunately you will be unable to see this because your scribed lines are now obscured. Tight corners and narrow curves may not admit the bit shank, and so these will be unreachable with the ball. Use the pointed bit freehand again to undercut these. When this job is complete inspect each mortise carefully and recut any questionable spots. It is not unusual to spend hours with each large mortise (and sometimes with small ones as well). Be prepared to devote lots of time to a large inlay project.
Now remove the drill from the router base and chuck the pointed bit again, and begin fitting the pearl inlays in their mortises. Once again examine each mortise for any rough edges or uneven lines, and smooth them carefully with the pointed bit. Gently press the inlay into place. If it won’t go in easily, stop and find out why. Some inlays go a short distance and bind, and then yield to slightly greater pressure and slip in to full depth. This is undesirable–remove the inlay, find out where it is binding, and smooth the edge. If you don’t, even slight expansion of the wood during seasonal changes may crack the inlay. Tight spots are usually visible after the inlay is removed because the pearl leaves a white mark. Examine such spots carefully and decide how deeply to cut into the wall of the mortise. This is where all of your careful early work can be compromised by impatience, so use good judgment about enlarging the mortise. If you stayed within the scribed line any binding has to be the result of little ridges and bumps on the mortise edge between the top of the ball-cut and the top surface of the wood. Look carefully for these and smooth them a little, then try to fit the inlay again. I have modified a discarded dental “elevator” into a tiny chisel for cleaning out areas that will not admit even the tiniest of dental bits. I don’t need it very often, but when I do nothing else seems to work. It is relatively rare for any inlay to fit perfectly on the first try, but it will become more common as your skill and experience accumulates. Now and again a delicate inlay (especially script) will become wedged in the mortise so that it is very difficult to remove. You must resist the temptation to 1) pry it out other than extremely gently; 2) leave it in place and attempt to pack filler around it. Work very carefully with toothpicks around the edges, and lift it out. It will come, but if you don’t work carefully it will break. Then find out where it is binding and smooth the edge.
Once all of the inlays are fitted they can be glued into place, and any gaps between the pearl and the mortise edge filled at the same time. The process is simple: fill the mortise with a glue/filler, press the inlay into place, level it, allow the filler to set up, and file, scrape, and sand the inlay flush. The standard glue/filler has been epoxy with dust from the same type of wood mixed in for color and texture. This works well with ebony, but far less so with rosewood–finely-divided rosewood dust mixed with epoxy is usually much darker and greener than solid rosewood. Some artisans use tinting colors, such as are used to tint house paint, with some success for rosewood, but I have yet to see a perfect match for rosewood with any coloring system. I just use rosewood dust and try to keep the mortises as close as possible.
Not all epoxies work well as inlay filler. My pearl inlay mentor experimented during the 1960’s with various epoxy brands to find those that set up hard (without a tacky surface) and that crept minimally. Epoxies are technically fluids even when set, and tend to flow just like water, except much slower. Really creepy epoxies soon leave gaps and pits in the fill space, and a superior inlay job can end up looking very inferior. My mentor selected Wilhold epoxy, and I followed his advice with good results for years. Wilhold epoxy is no longer with us and I now use Epoxy 220, a long-cure two part preparation available from jewelers suppliers and other sources and I’m about as satisfied with its performance as I was with Wilhold’s. I know that many are using five-minute epoxy, and I guess this is all right except that one must mix several batches in the course of an inlay job, and many of these preparations never lose a slight tack. I think the best choice is the light-colored long-set/long cure material, and the appropriate goal is to develop your skills enough so that you need very little or no filler at all. Whatever epoxy you use, be sure to mix dead-equal quantities of resin and catalyst, because a mixture of unequal quantities, particularly an excess of resin, tends to creep forever. I make up the mixture, stir carefully to ensure uniformity, and mix with just enough wood dust to yield a fluid mixture of the correct color. In my experience, the best dust is produced by filing wood with a metal file, as other dust may be too coarse or may be mixed with “impurities” (sandpaper abrasives, etc). Some artisans insert the inlay, pack wood dust into the crevices, and then saturate the dust with cyanoacrylate glue which sets up in seconds. The work I’ve seen that used this method looked good, but time will tell whether the glue remains stable enough to keep the inlays in place down through the decades. I have my doubts.
If you are using long-set epoxy, you can fill all of the inlay mortises to about 3/4 depth with the epoxy filler. If you are using five-minute material, only fill one or two large mortises at a time. I emphasize this–if your epoxy sets up before you embed the inlay, you will have to re-rout the mortise. After the requisite number of mortises is filled, press each inlay into place, and level it by rocking gently with a couple of toothpicks or thin dowels. Another advantage of long-set epoxy is that there is time to self-level prior to embedding the inlay. Be very careful not to let epoxy flow into the fret slots! Embed all of the inlays and double-check each to make certain that they are seated to full depth and that the filler has oozed out all around. Make sure that no inlay is tilted. In the past I have applied heat from a high-intensity reading lamp to each inlay-filler to increase fluidity and allow bubbles to escape, but this practice is now discouraged because it has been shown that most epoxies liberate toxic gases such as phosgene when heated. This practice also accelerates the cure, so that long-set epoxy when heated may harden in just a few minutes. In any case, allow the epoxy to harden completely before proceeding.
The final steps are to clean up the excess filler and level the inlays with the surrounding wood. I use a cabinet scraper, a double-cut mill file, and a hard rubber sanding block with various grits from 80 (pretty coarse) through 600 (pretty fine). Start with the (dull) scraper and shave away the epoxy from around and on top of the inlay. Be very careful in this and the following steps not to gouge or otherwise damage the surrounding wood. Continue to shave until most of the epoxy is gone. A coarse mill file can take the process a step further and begin to level the inlays with the wood, but again please be careful not to dig into the wood. Finally, use the sanding block alternately with the scraper on each inlay (avoid the surrounding wood, because it is much softer than the inlay and will erode at a much higher rate–this will result in high and low spots). Change to 120 grit after the inlays are completely leveled and flush with the wood, and sand carefully to remove the 80-grit scratches. I emphasize–use a sanding block, or at least use sandpaper folded over a thick piece of cork. Do not use your fingers as a sanding pad for this or any other operation in lutherie. If large bubble holes show up in the filler, take an extra day to fill them and to cure the new epoxy, then level with the sanding block and scraper. After the 80-grit scratches are gone, move on in turn through 220, 320, 400, and 600 grits (all used dry). Sand the entire fingerboard with all of the grits from 220 and finer. By the time you get to 600, the inlays should be free of visible scratches and they should look pretty good against the dark wood. You should be beaming with pride.…
Carefully clean out the fret slots with an X‑Acto knife and #11 blades, and with a vacuum cleaner hose before you attempt to install frets.
I don’t oil fingerboards, other than to allow skin oils to put the characteristic patina in the board with time and playing. I have found that a final vigorous polish with a cloth diaper or dish towel does at least as nice a job as oil on the board and inlays, and doesn’t add any chemicals to the wood, so I recommend that approach over any oil, plant-derived or not. Oils also soften fingerboard wood, may cause finish to peel away from the wood along the edges of the fingerboard, may loosen frets and inlays, and do not actually prevent moisture movement across fingerboards (proper seasoning does that). Avoid them—they’re up to no good.
Engraving: If your pattern involves engraving, now is the time. Engraving is an advanced technique that requires much practice and study to master, and the technique itself when done well has subtlety that defies simple instruction. The basics of engraving are simple enough–purchase some gravers, draw some lines on the inlays, etch, deepen, and widen the lines as appropriate with the graver(s), and use Laskin’s black filler, the epoxy-ebony dust mixture, or perhaps colored inks to darken and color the engraved lines. If you’re just copying an established pattern all you really need is practice—glue some scrap pieces of pearl to a piece of wood and practice your engraving on them until you have the confidence you need to do a creditable engraving job.
To become a master engraver you need to develop your graphics skills as much as your engraving technique. If you want to inlay a “real” object (human, animal, etc) to be engraved, start with photographs and detailed sketches of the object, and a sketch of the inlay. Use the photographs and other visual aids liberally to help you envision the accents needed to lend dimension and realism (assuming that’s the artistic goal). Pencil the lines on the sketch, verify that each line is needed, and then when the inlay is completed execute each line on the inlay with style and confidence. Strive to achieve smooth curves, correctly tapered and deepened cuts, appropriate accents and shading, anatomical accuracy, good perspective, and dimensional resolution, all of which characterize expert engraving. As with everything else that we have discussed, start simple, build methodically from there, and don’t rush. Inexpert engraving can detract from otherwise good inlay, so be sure of your skills before you commit to an inlay job that requires engraving. Hint: try to devote some time watching an expert inlay engraver at work.
Dot inlays: Purchase the correct dots, purchase a matching brad-point drill bit, purchase a drill press. Do not attempt this with a hand drill. Drill the holes to nearly full depth, press each dot into place, put a drop of cyanoacrylate glue (Crazy-Glue or similar) around the edge of the inlay, let it set up, sand off the glue and protruding pearl and polish as above. I’m not so concerned about the longevity of cyanoacrylate for this application because the dots usually fit tightly and the glue may just create a vacuum under the inlay so the dots won’t move even if not technically “stuck” in place. Some of the old Gibson Mastertone patterns use small dots in floral array—purchase the appropriate size dots, don’t try to cut them with the jeweler’s saw because such hand-cut dots will usually make an otherwise glorious inlay job look clunky.
Resources: There are websites galore devoted to inlay—take time to visit as many as you can. Most steel string guitar construction books include sections on inlay technique, as do Roger Siminoff’s books on mandolin and banjo construction. All of these references have much to offer and some have rather different approaches than what I have described. An older but very useful print reference on inlay technique is James Patterson’s “Pearl Inlay,” (revised in 1988) which covers lots of territory including how to produce your own blanks and strips from raw shell. A somewhat newer reference also now in its second edition is Larry Robinson’s “The Art of Inlay,” which includes instructions on the inlay process and has many great photographs of Larry’s phenomenal pieced inlay work. Larry “works large” and has developed an elaborate technique for filler-free inlaid motifs with multitudes of amazingly well-fitted component pieces. His work is stunning, his book is superb, and you should be able to get lots of ideas on using various inlay materials to best advantage. Larry has also produced a series of DVDs on inlay which I haven’t seen but I can’t imagine would be anything less than great. My other favorite book on inlay is William “Grit” Laskin’s “A Guitarmaker’s Canvas.” Grit also does phenomenal pieced work with numerous inlay materials, and like Larry he is a master engraver. I never tire of gazing at Grit’s astonishing and evocative inlaid scenes and it is tempting to think that he and Larry have taken instrument inlay as far as it can be taken. But Grit, Larry, Renee Karnes, and others are proof that at about the time we think we’ve seen the apex, along comes someone whose design talents and inlay technique surpass that apex by a mile. New hands will bring further accomplishments, more inspiration, new pinnacles. Practice, think, use your imagination, continuously improve your drawing, layout, and inlaying skills, think some more, devote the learning time, practice some more, and try to make your hands the new hands.
Sean Barry
Davis, California
October 2011
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