Filler?

[Ripper]

My Washburn acoustic has beautiful Abalone inlay on the headstock.

Anyone know how they get such a tight fit? You know, no gaps around the letters and such...Is that filler?

[crazymanandy]

I suppose they just did a good job routing out the wood?

CMA

[sumgai]

deep,

Care, patience, and attention to detail.

Or, you could do it like I do...... undersize the cutout (hole) by 1/64", then trim the inlay to fit as you work it into its new home. It would take a micrometer to determing that the inlay has been trimmed down from its original size.

HTH


sumgai

[pollyshero]

Check out "Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology" by William Cumpiano and Jonathan Natelson - It's a $30.00 book, but I've seen it at the library.

They go into minute detail of the process - with pictures.

They use a formica router & dental burrs on the wood. The abalone is cut by hand with a jeweler's saw, then filed/sanded to fit the rout.

[GuitarTechCraig]

If the headstock is black, they may have used black epoxy, which could be made virtually invisible next to the black paint.

I've heard that some manufacturers make their headstock inlays surrounded by another material. This essentially takes the detailed routing out of the process. For example, if your guitar was brand XYZ and you inlaid an abalone ZXY into a square of black material first, you would be routing a square. It is suggested that Gibson does their inlays this way.

Of course, this only works with solid color headstocks. If the headstock is an overlay (veneer) surface, they could possibly pre-route the overlay.