Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

[SUNGOD]

Greetings Dudes:

Hoping some of you in the know might be able to help me out, I'm wanting to find abalone inlay blanks of the same material used in the fingerboard for Jackson USA Soloists... I'm going to be using them for a stripe design on the body of the guitar, and wanted them to match with the sharkfin inlays... I know that (or have been told) Jackson does not use real abalone, just the fake stuff... Anyone know of a place I could find some blanks of this same material? Thanks~

[Soloist1]

Re: Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

I doubt what I have seen them use is fake. Looks real to me. Did you hear they use Ablam or something like that? That's still real abalone. It's just a bunch of pieces that are cut thin and laminated together. Abalone shells are extremely small. That's why it's hard to find big blanks of the real deal. It's doubtful you will find an exact match to the abalone on your guitar. Abalone will look a certain way due to the enviroment they live in. Even ablam will change appearance as the batches of shells that they use come from different harvests. At best you may be able to find something that is close.

[Soloist1]

Re: Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

And are you sure it's abalone and not mother of pearl? They don't use abalone on a lot of guitars.

[SLATQH]

Re: Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

stewmac.com is a good source

[dd3keegs]

Re: Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

I've had good luck with this company....Try www.stewmac.com/ship/Inlay,_pearl/Inlay_material:_Blanks.html Stew-Mac does carry beautiful abalone...However, be prepared to pay for quality though. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[dd3keegs]

Re: Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

OOOpppss! [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img] The link may not lead you directly to the page you need. If it does not...got to left margin and click on "Inlay, Pearl". Then click on "Blanks". They have Pearl and Abalone blanks to choose from. I like the Alablam blanks also.

[SUNGOD]

Re: Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

Thanx dudes! I'll check them out! True that there are many factors which may give diff appearence to the inlay, I'm just hoping to get lucky and find something relatively close ;-)

[Soloist1]

Re: Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

Stewmac has decent stuff. But they won't match you up the way you want to. Talk to Andy or Bob at http://www.luthiersupply.com If you can email them a pic of your inlays they will get as close as match as humanly possible. I bought a shit load of blue Paua Abalone from them for my GMW custom I'm having built. They got me exactly the color I was looking for and at an awesome price also. Bob even drew up the custom inlays I wanted done on his PC and sent me actual size templates free of charge.

[Jim Shine]

Re: Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

Originally posted by Soloist1:
Stewmac has decent stuff. But they won't match you up the way you want to. Talk to Andy or Bob at http://www.luthiersupply.com If you can email them a pic of your inlays they will get as close as match as humanly possible. I bought a shit load of blue Paua Abalone from them for my GMW custom I'm having built. They got me exactly the color I was looking for and at an awesome price also.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I agree! I bought some shell out of there a few years back. StewMac is good if you don't need to match the material and if you like doing 'one stop shopping', but there are much better suppliers out there who often have better prices.

[xenophobe]

Re: Jackson Abalone Inlay Questions

Jackson has never used fake Abalone on any of their USA guitars. It's all the real stuff. Mother of Pearl has been all real too, except for the later imports, I think. I'm pretty sure the Model series used real MOP for their sharksfins.

As far as I know, there was never any fake or real abalone used in any imports, except maybe a few of the accoustics.