What do you call the material of these inlays?

[Venomboy]

Re: What do you call the material of these inlays?

Thorn told me he uses it if someone wants to cut costs. He just warned me up front that non-abalam can get very pricey really quick because it's small and rare. Stewmac sells abalam blanks for like $50 or so, and you can get a couple of inlays out of a blank.

[Soloist1]

Re: What do you call the material of these inlays?

You looking for shell for your MCS Venomboy? I got my stuff at http://www.luthiersupply.com
Andy and Bill are both great guys. And they hooked me up price wise. They have every shell imagineable and great quality too.

[eddiewarlock]

Re: What do you call the material of these inlays?

i got some Paua abalone off a jewelry box my mom was about to throw away! the pieces on the box were big enough to let me inlay 2 fretboards with big diamonds a la BC Rich, and it's unbelievably gorgeous, i recently got some MOP to inlay another fretboard with big diamonds....it feels like i'm inlaying plastic, abalone is the shit!

[Venomboy]

Re: What do you call the material of these inlays?

Hey Soloist, I've been checking out that site. I might go with Abalam because of the size of the inlays. They're already not going to be cheap to cut and inlay. But I haven't made a final decision on the inlayer yet. Hopefully by end of week I'll have everything resolved.

[Venomboy]

Re: What do you call the material of these inlays?

Abalam is the correct term for the laminated abalone. I saw a few sheets of it at Neal Moser's house. Nice stuff. I spoke with Ron Thorn last week about inlays and he said abalam is the most cost effective stuff. The real deal shell pieces are very small and making larger inlays is difficult and expensive because quantities are limited and you have to fit them together like a puzzle.

[Soloist1]

Re: What do you call the material of these inlays?

Yeah that's the stuff. I'm surprised Ron Thorn uses that. My biggest surprise is how different Neal and Lee are when it comes to guitars. Lee says he hates the abalam stuff. Especially for inlays. He said he'll use it for binding but prefers real shell. Lee also hates grover tuners. I wanted some on the Beast he's doing and he told me no way I should go with those. They sure have turned out some sweet axes between the two of them though. Guess it's a matter of personal preference. But I wonder what those days where those two guys that are both set in their ways start to disagree are like. lol