Mother of Pearl or Paua Shell inlays

[Gavin1393]

I thought that since some of us are using or getting into using Mother of Pearl (MOP) or Paua shell for our inlays I would share some secrets in terms of how I was taught to do inlay work.

The first thing you need is to get yourself a jewellers saw and some very fine blades such as shown here.

[Gavin1393]

There is a bit of a trick to getting the blade nice and taught as well as to get the blade to slide and cut through the MOP easily. The trick is to press the handle up against your belly with the one side of the blade fixed tightly in place. With the other side of the blade still unfixed to the saw squeeze the saw towards your belly and now clamp the blade in place. When you release the squeeze the blade will now be taught. The finishing touch is to rub the blade with some candle wax to lubricate it.

[Gavin1393]

With this process completed, you need to grab a piece of wood and cut a narrow "v" shape / bird beak shape and the MOP is then place in the mouth of this shape and you are ready to cut.

To prepare your MOP piece print out your shape on computer or similar and then glue onto the MOP with superglue.


....depending on the complexity of your (in this case) headstock logo you will need patience, spare blades because they tend to break quite easily and some spare MOP because these tend to snap if you arent careful. My logo below will normally take about 30-40 minutes to make.

One more thing the blade always needs to be cutting on the DOWN stroke.....

[Gavin1393]

...or you could get one of these and have the job done in less than 10 mins!


NOW THAT IS A SAW TO TAKE TO A MOP FIGHT! 8O 8O 8O

[keloooe]

HELL YEAH GAV!!! That scroll saw looks like the same model I used to cut the LP headstock, easy to control, but if you cant finish the cut you will find it is very hard to back it out again...

I wanna do the PCG in MOP one day...