Abalone dot inlays before sanding radius?

[piece of ash]

Superglue IS CA glue... they are one and the same. Originally the term was brand specific... it is now just jargan for CA.

And it is serious stuff. I knew an NASA engineer who said we wouldn't have made it to the moon without it.

My experience is the hobby shop stuff is better than the spendy Loctite stuff, as the former seems to "bloom" much less... bloom being the term for the white residue left around sometimes.

 

[Nick JD]

Have you ever sanded to a better looking layer before?

Often the best colours and figure are a bit deeper. Here's a shell that's been sanded right down and polished - some parts are about half the thickness of others. Makes it a pain for inlay but prettier.

On the second photo you can see the layers where the shell has been built up by the paua from the inside the same way pearls are succussively layered. Usually if you sand through to a dull layer there's probably a nicer layer underneath it - might be a winter vs summer thing.

 

[Colt W. Knight]

Here is how I do it

1. Cut the slots in the fretboard.
2. I cover the top of the fretboard with pencil, and readius the fretboard.
3. I take a business card or flexible credit card and draw my "x"s on the board to locate the center.
4. Center punch the location of the dots.
5. Drill the dots. I eyeball the depth.
6. Put a drop of Cyanoacrylate glue in the hole, and tap the pearl dot in with a brass hammer or a piece of wood. I have used thick and thin CA glue for the task, and I prefer thick CA glue.
7. Sand the dots flush to the board with 60, then 100, then 150, then 220. I stop there on a maple board because the lacquer will bring out the shine. On rosewood or ebony I progress through the grits till I bring out the luster of the fretboard and dots.

I do not worry about sanding through the layers of 1/4" MOP or abalone dots. Because, whenever your done, it still looks like Abalone dots.

I also use the above method for wood and metal posistion dots.

 

[flatfive]

Hi piece_of_ash. Yeah, I know that SuperGlue is a brand of
CA glue. I was responding to Mojotron's statement that he
prefers to avoid the SuperGlue brand -- at least that's how
I understood his statement.

(I'm assuming your comment was directed to me...)

Superglue IS CA glue... they are one and the same. Originally the term was brand specific... it is now just jargan for CA.

 

[Mojotron]

Hey Mojotron -- as usual you have thought through the issues
well.

But... why do you like to glue this way? I really like to keep glue
off the fretboard, so have used just a wee bit of medium CA
at the bottom of the hole. I used StewMac 1/4" dots and they
hardly needed glue.

Yep, I would not say it's the 'right' way to do it - but it's the easiest method for me to get a decent result with the best alignment. Pretty dots are great, but if they are not aligned well enough it drives me nuts. The main reason why I do it this way is that I'm going to loose about .005" in the middle of the board anyways (perhaps via aggressive sanding - but usually via routing the top of the board - though with shell I have not and likely would not do it that way for dust control if no other reason) that usually takes care of surfacing any glue overruns and the CA will fill tiny gaps if there are any - though with good dots and a forstner bit there's not that much to worry about.

Glue on the bottom works fine too - but since I generally do all the rough radiusing with a router jig - I do the gluing around the sides to make sure that the sides are all filled in: The router will kick the dots out of the hole (or rip them right off their bottoms) if they move from side to side at all. It really does just take a "tiny drop" on each end - just enough to fill the gaps so there is not enough glue to bleed out in to the wood much at all.

If there is any chance that I need something stronger, the dot material may do better with a different glue or if I need to fill big gaps I'll use a different glue - like epoxy or Super-T.

Also, thinner the CA, the more the absorption into the wood.
I realize, though, with your approach, thin CA is needed.

A final little question: is SuperGlue really bad? It's
made by the same people who make Z-Poxy, Zap CA,
and Pacer industrial adhesives. They seem like a serious
adhesives company.

I'm sure they are, it's more a matter of consistency and tolerance. I may be blaming SuperGlue for KrazyGlue's problems - I used to use both a lot for patching polyurethane cracks. I think what it comes down to is that there are some CA glues that may sit on shelves for years before I cracked them open and did strange things with them... They worked, sometimes great, but I never got consistent curing and viscosity until I switched to SatelliteCity. As far as tolerance: I get a little picky about glues - hey this guys a little picky about his vacuum
image removed

 

[piece of ash]

Wow!

You actually run the router over abalone?????????????

 

[Mojotron]

Wow!

You actually run the router over abalone?????????????

Keep readin'....

 

[piece of ash]

You betcha!