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Anyone installed these inlays? A customer has requested these on an F5 peg head and fingerboard. Can’t figure out from the photos how they will work with a bound Peg Head and FB. Does the inlay perimeter install very close to bindings, or does the inlay meet the edge of the PH and FB and replace binding. Have asked DePaule Supply for some installed photos but would appreciate this forum’s wisdom. Thanks
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In my estimation the pearl would have to be inside of standard (black?) binding. There's no way pearl is going to hold up to the bumps those areas get over time. You be asking for chips and loose pieces down the road. I'd bind in black and put pearl side dots in it. Happy routing!
I'd also ask DePaule how wide the inlay is at the nut. Your customer might not be considering that but if they gave you a nut width they want the inlay might not allow that.
Rob
I assume they would be installed a bit inside the binding, but you could ask Andy what his intention was.
You'd also have to lay it all out carefully so the parts flow around your tuner bushings. Each brand of tuner ideally needs a different placement on an F5 because of the shaft lengths, so it's unlikely that it would fit as shown without some modification. Also your headstock probably isn't exactly the same shape as the one Andy used. You can probably modify it to work, but I would just be aware of all those possible issues from the start.
General questions: These inlays are hand made, so no templates. Do any of you scan these with a CNC and then use it to rout the recesses? For something this complex, how many labor hours would you estimate for all hand work?
Andrew Mowry has a pretty genius method of using a photograph, overlaid in the CAD program, to lay out pearl inlay blanks. No reason why it wouldn't work for hand-cut inlays as well - in fact, that would definitely be preferable than just trying to to re-create the shapes in CAD.
Thanks to all for the input. I printed out the DePaule images at “actual size” and overlayed them on my peg head and fingerboard templates. Am waiting for Sam at DePaule to confirm actual dimensions. The PH inlay is too wide at the top, but could be corrected, I think by filing the lower point miter joints. That would still leave a large amount of pearl over the tuner holes. Would certainly not look well matched to the PH layout. Adding white binding would make it look even worse. Fretboard inlay appears to have less issues if ebony binding is used. I have no expertise in hand sawing MOP so don’t want to buy these inlays if much of that is what would be required. Your thoughts, as always, are welcome. Thanks
John
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Fingerboard chaos like that makes my head hurt. It really makes it a confusing mess to play compared to a simple all black or modest inlaid board.
From experience, I can tell you already that you should have quoted much a higher price for all that and it will not be the slick easy job you anticipated!!!
Whenever I get a request like that, I usually sub out the whole inlay process to a specialist like Larry Robinson; problem solved. If the customer balks at the price or the effort, not my problem; $5 budgets should not ask for supercar inlays....
I turn photos in to black and white jpegs, import in to inkscape, trace it using the bitmap trace feature, save it as svg then import it in to a CAD program. I can print right out of inkscape for a template. All are free online software.