Official Luthiers Forum!

Just got back from New Mexico where a lot of turquoise is sold.  Has anyone experience with inlaying this material?  I think it would look awesome inlaid on an ebony peghead veneer!

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

I bought some, along with some tigers eye, for rosette work. But I havent even looked at it. Cutting it thin without breaking is the challenge. I was also thinking about small chunks in epoxy, which is a nice look, standard in South West jewlery. 

check out some of the inlay on Pimentel and Sons guitars.

This shop in Albuquerque is the reason I got into guitar construction.
One of the luthiers, Rick, was extremely helpful and forthright with answering questions.  If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today.

I think I recall Rick telling me he goes out into the hills and picks his own rocks, then carves them on the same wheel where he does abalone shell using similar techniques.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Dave

Does anyone supply turquoise in the right thickness for inlay or does one have to get all the lapidary equipment and do it themselves?

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

I think LMI sells the dots and working inlay pieces, you might check them out.

Mike
White Oak, Texas

This might be what you're looking for

smalwonder

Richard

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Richard

check out www.masecraftsupply.com

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

A lot of luthiers use reconstituted turquoise

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Dave
Milton, ON

I have talked to inlayers about using real stone as I have alot of it myself, and access to untold quantities through a friend who is in the biz.. however the problem comes when levelling your work, the materials wear at different rates under abrasives - so you can end up with uneven work real fast.
I used to cut semi precious stone for my friend, it required a rock saw at the least.. I had an oil cooled rig and a water cooled rig with 3 stones and an flat end polisher for finishing cabs and other shapes. The oil cooled rigs are quite expensive even for a starter rig your looking at a grand - but surprisingly you can find water cooled rigs in the back of local buy and sell rags.. usually theres someone getting out of the hobby/business every day - once upon a time that was me - even though I took a beating on my gear, Im glad I did cause most people have work done overseas now, at a very cheap price comapred to what a North American can do it for - I think you also see this in shell and inlay materials too..if Im not mistaken,,,
Good luck with it - I know its not impossible to inlay real stone, its more painstaking,,,
but most people do use reconstituted stone for its relative ease compared to real stone.
However real stone inlay would be a real treasure no doubt,,,
Cheers
Charlie

John Calkin wrote an article for AL where he described his technique with turquoise. He took several chunks of real stone, put it in a sheet metal "corral" atop his table saw, where he then beat the stuffing out of it with a hammer. His point was to reduce it to much smaller pieces, which he then poured into routed channels. CA adhesive can be used as a binder, or a dyed epoxy. When leveled, the darker glue line surrounding the smaller pieces of turquoise gives the impression of the stone and its matrix. The value of this, is that you can almost "pour" your turquoise into, say, a purfling channel, a FB channel, you name it.

Now if you figure something out using Tiger's Eye, I'd love to hear that.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Seems the recon stone is the way to go if one can get it in .060 or .050 thickness.  Would it be easier to level than the real stone?  I was thinking of combining it with silver wire.  Guess I should start another thread for that. Thanks Rich

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

Ricardo, you can obtain it in roughly .06" thickness from Rescue Pearl

[QUOTE=Ricardo] Seems the recon stone is the way to go if one can get it in .060 or .050 thickness.  Would it be easier to level than the real stone?  I was thinking of combining it with silver wire.  Guess I should start another thread for that. Thanks Rich
[/QUOTE]
Appearantly that is exactly why people use the recon stone, it wears more evenly with other materials under abrasive -
Now having said that - I am a bit of a turquoise connisuer(<-2pts spelling?)
I love the stuff and have aLot of chunks lying around, and as you probably know there are alot of different grades of turquoise, ranging from chalky stuff that is empregnated with plastics in order to make it more stone like, to gem quality turquoise that is translucent very hard, and a very deep blue comparitively.
The majority of North American mines have been pretty much mined out practically, and sadly,
with only the odd bit of fine quality turquoise being found these days - and much(most) of what is being sold these days?(from the N.A. mines) is a much lower quality than in the past.. and usually a very light blue, usually even blue with no inclusions, and this is the stuff that is empreganted with epoxies and plastics in order to make it marketable..
An easy way to tell if you have this type is to take a pin and get it red hot, then place it to the turquoise, it will have the tellltale plastic smell if it is the empregnated variety.
Now the reason I bring this up, is that while from a rock collector view the higher grade of turquoise the better, but from an inlay perpective this empreganted variety might be a boon to you - first off it is far cheaper than the higher quality turquoise, and seeing as it is partially constituted with plastic anyway it might wear very well with abrasives....thus being a potentially great inlay material :)
There are alot of other (not true) turquoises coming to the surface and being marketed these days as well - some of it is from Asian sources, and it has a telltale green hue to it.
The other prevalent turquoise being marketed is African souced and while it contains the same sort of blue that some of the North American Turquoise has, it tends to be mabled in colour with beige and browns, that are unlike the beige and black the predominate the partially marbelled North American stock(upon close inspection). Having any experince with turquoise makes it pretty easy to distuingish the types from one another,,,
From what the gemologist at my local rock and gem shop tells me the African variety is close compositionally to true turquoise but not quite exact..
Lastly there is a false turquoise that comes from Asia - its dyed blue and is very easy to spot, its usually contained in alot of junk jewelry.
I hope this helps, as I said the empreganted variety might work well for you, and its cheap as its practically chalk mineral when extracted from the earth and not really truly stone to begin with,,, however it looks the part very much and is quite even in texture and color,
Cheers
Charlie