Source of white inlay material.

[Jim Baker]

Anyone know where I can buy white material for inlay. I don't want m.o.p. or anything flashy. Just plain white.

Thanks

[slausonm]

Anyone know where I can buy white material for inlay. I don't want m.o.p. or anything flashy. Just plain white.

Thanks

I have a considerable amount of white Corian counter top material that I have been resawing and thickness sanding. I've been making nuts out of it and experimenting with some inlay. If you want a bit of that I would be willing to pop it in an envelope and ship it to you. How much do you need? To me it looks more like a very light bone color. It is not a bright white.

Matt

[Jim Baker]

Thanks Matt. Very generous offer. I need enough for fret board dots and a small inlay in the head. Tell you what, let me look at my local lumber store first to see if they have anything. Seems strange the luthier supply sites don't show anything like that.

[slausonm]

Thanks Matt. Very generous offer. I need enough for fret board dots and a small inlay in the head. Tell you what, let me look at my local lumber store first to see if they have anything. Seems strange the luthier supply sites don't show anything like that.

I have plenty enough to share if you can't find it locally.

Matt

[Paul Hostetter]

White hard PVC, such as schedule 40 plumbing stuff, works quite well. You can get PVC in a lot of colors.

http://www.zjkl.com/admin2/upload/200911518635.jpg

[Jim Baker]

Thanks Paul. That would work if I could cut a flat piece large enough. Is it easy to work?

[leathermarshmallow]

Why not try some cheap picks (plectrums). You can get just about any color you want and could come up with some cool designs.

[Rolfe]

Or, more traditional, try bleached bone. A guitar saddle blank may be large enough?

[Mario Proulx]

Old piano key ivory is just perfect for inlays, also. It's right at around 1/16" thick, and cuts so nicely. Old upright pianos get sent to the landfill all the time, so you're not endangering any critter by using the ivory. Most any piano repairman/tuner will have bags of them.

[Lefty Luthier]

I regularly use sections from a short chunk of 8" white PVC pipe that the local water company left behind after completing a repair. It is slightly more than 1/4" thick and both cuts and polishes fine. It is relatively easy to cut nice 1/16" slabs for inlay or full thickness strips for point guards. I personally prefer pearl or bone but the PVC does work fine.

[Rroyd]

If the piano keys aren't an option, try checking with suppliers selling large diameter PVC pipe for broken scraps that would be easy to sand flat and still be thick enough. My uncle used to chuck pieces of pipe in his drill press and use valve grinding compound to cut round holes in sheets of glass for mounting them in equipment, ending up with matching pieces of round glass "dots" as a by-product. If you ended up with some hard-to-cut material, this method would work well for making the dots.

[Darryl Wolfe]

Fender's old tried and true "just drill it and fill it" "clay" dots work for simple shapes.

[Jim Baker]

Can you buy white bondo? :whistling:

[Willie]

Jim...There are all kinds of white toys and other white kitchen gadgets in most "dollar" stores and they are all over the place...Just sitand think about all of the options you now have...Willie

[Paul Hostetter]

Bondo remains a little flexible, not a good choice. I've thinking more about the PVC. As a dead white inlay material, it might be OK. It's plastic, so it's not as hard as, say, bone, but it remains dimensionally stable and stays white. There's a brand of PVC rain gutter called (I think) Rain-Go, that has clips and so on that are flat and thick enough for cutting inlays. Ace carries it.

Bone does seem like a better choice in some ways, though it's not likely to stay dead white.

[bigbike]

And you say that the luthiers supply places don't have anything that you can use? Seems LMI has a lot of stuff from simple white dots, to snow flake designs in almost any material and color you want. Of course the prices for precut. . . then of course there is always binding material. Me I just use scraps of bone nut.

[toddjoles]

I've been thinking about doing this on my next project, but haven't tried this myself yet. Most home stores have formica samples in the kitchen design area, these are about the same dimensions as MOP (it is thinner though). They come in a variety of colors/patterns and usually they are FREE. You would have to set them a little under the surrounding surface and fill/level with epoxy because the color layer can't be sanded.

[Jim Baker]

Thanks guys. I see lots of m.o.p. and shell and precut shapes on LMI but no blank plain white. My plan is to cut my own design. Never done it before. Could be a disaster.

[Bill Snyder]

What about a white pickguard? Amazon has a 1/16" thick PVC sheet HERE. (http://www.amazon.com/White-PVC-Sheet-Type-Thick/dp/B000ILG0BY/ref=pd_sbs_indust_1)

[Jim Baker]

Hey, that would do it although I can't imagine what I'd do with a sheet that large. I wonder what that cheap white patio furniture is made of. Hmmmmm...........