Official Luthiers Forum!

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Nice videos, and the Sharpie™ tip is a good one for those inlaying manually (and encourages smaller gaps than dust-filling!)

The pipette tip was great, too...brings me back to making glass capillary tubes in school!

The only thing I would recommend advising differently on is releasing inlay from backer boards. The inlay should -never- break coming off the backer. It should fall/peel off with the gentlest touch of a scribe or a finger after being soaked. Back when I was using hide glue to hold inlay to backer boards (pretty much the standard), I'd put the boards in a bowl hot water (possibly changing out the water a couple times) until the inlay fell off the board on its own or was hanging on only by some swollen glue. You can stick the whole works in the microwave to get the water nice and hot (not to boiling, but steaming is fine), it won't hurt the pearl.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

I agree that I rushed it a bit. It also allows to show that when things go wrong , it isn't the end of the world. Often things can be fixed with a little care and technique

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

John -

Thanks so much for posting this tutorial - I used these techniques and got results 200% better than what I'd been doing. Thanks!!