Started with one rough walnut board and chunked it up and planed it thickness with my surfacing bit on the shapeoko, sanded it up, then carved out pockets for strips of steel on the inside to hold magnets, and pocketed an inlay design that I filled with mother of Pearl flake.
My buddy loved it, and i had fun trying out a couple new techniques.
I have never seen that done before, it is a very cool effect!
NICE! and it looks great
did you use CA glue on the mother of pearl ?
Yep ,tried thin and medium.
The thin was much, much better in this case, it just pulled through on its own. The medium clumped up on top and tended to stay put (in a clump on top) and slowed things down.
Your project inspired me to try mother of pearl inlays sooner rather than later. But a quick search on my local Amazon only returned bottles of mother or pearl powder for people to EAT (I had no idea this was a thing…something to do with teeth and bone density), I can’t seem to fond mother of pearl flakes/powder for hobbyists, I’ll keep searching.
Woodcraft has the easy inlay for $12 / ea. Get one of each to play with (fine and flake)!
CAUTION! The dust from MOP and abalone is harmful, precautions should be taken. It is not “toxic” per se but lodges in the alveloi of the lungs causing damage in a manner very similar to asbestos.
I’ve done inlay work with shell for 50 years. I cut pieces versus using it as dust. Wear a mask if doing bulk work, wet sand when possible. When milling on the Nomad I place the MOP in an acrylic reservoir and cut under water. Many instrument makers who do this by hand set up miniture vacuum systems to exhaust the dust outside the shop as they cut with a jeweler’s saw.
Here’s just one link if you’re skeptical: https://www.banjohangout.org/archive/215343
Search “dangers of shell dust” for many more references.
