Official Luthiers Forum!

I have been reading Cumpiano's luthier book (an amazing piece of work, If you don't own it, I suggest it to any luthier) and another book on pearl/abalone inlay. Both books suggest buying whole chunks of abalone shell, resawing them to usable blanks, and then fitting them for guitar parts. This strikes me as perhaps a more economic approach to guitar inlay. I have researched online some, and am coming up short on any dealers of abalone shells. Could anyone perhaps point me in the right direction? Both of the above books include diagrams for cutting and duplicating pieces of rosettes and etc. And I am one of those Luthiers that likes to make ALL the pieces of the guitar from slabs/blanks (Kerfing, braces too), and would like to be able to cut my own abalone without paying an arm and a leg for one guitar. Any sites or information would be great - thanks!

_________________
Jake

~Make a joyful noise unto the Lord~

If you live on the West Coast, you might have or find a diving friend. I used to have a diving friend in California who dived (or is it dove?) for abalone. He threw the shells away. I rescued a couple for soap dishes before I was into luthiery and now I kick myself for not getting more when I had the chance.

_________________
A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

Jake,

You can buy pieces of whole shell from StewMac and others. You might need to check out Hawaiian or California seafood dealers for whole shell.

Just as a friendly comment, you might want to tone down your sig.

Jake, I too like to be the only hand in my guitar building like you.I even fell the tree my guitars are made of.I don't believe in buying any thing i can make myself to build a guitar.In fact, a don't even like buying fret wire and tuners for my guitars.I do make my own pearl blanks from shell for all my inlaying.Not living near the west coast where they are collected makes it hard to find, but i have been able to get alot of my shell from ebay.Sometimes i buy an ashtray and cut it up for blanks.I then use my lapidary equiptment to lap it flat and thickness to 1/16" For inlaying.You can get 10 or 12 nice blanks out of a good shell.Worm holes are your worse enemy buying shells,as sometimes you cant see what you are getting off the bay, but over all i have done well getting them that way.Good luck in your shell hunting. Mark

Here's a few links that I found.

I have not done business with any of these websites, so I can't comment on that.

This should give you something to look at for now.

Good luck.

http://www.usshell.com/abaloneseashell.aspx

http://deltonaseashells.com/abalone__seashells

http://www.incensewarehouse.com/search.asp?keyword=abalone

http://www.seashellco.com/abalone-c-458_389.html

http://www.universaltreasures.com/shell.htm

http://store.wanderingbull.com/abshandwost.html

_________________
Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."

Man, abalone is so expensive. How is it that I see abalone purfling on inexpensive (like sub $200) guitars? did they just use abalone decal?

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

This is something I have a little experience with, I and a friend made an order of 600 shells a couple years back, it was expensive then, and the dealer said it would be smaller and smaller shell for more and more money as time wore on - on account of this resource dwindling dramatically -
Luckily my friend was experienced with importing rock and gems and handled the brokerage - otherwise it would have cost even more...
Ok then we had the shell - for a good amt of $$$$
have you ever worked with this stuff???
Nasty - in a word... Its easy for me to see why the price is commanded - its nasty dirty to work and expensive for raw material in the first place....
I have plenty of shell, but no I wouldnt part with any,,,, not because I dont think I could get more - although its somewhat of a concern...
But only because I dont want to go through the process of procuring more!!!
Good Luck if your dead set on getting some this way...
But Id pay for Abalam if i hadnt gotten my own, its worth it.
Cheers
Charlie

I once found an abalone shell in my back yard so I just had to give it a go.

I sliced it with a cheap tile wet saw that I had.

Then I used the grinding wheel that came with my safety planer on my drill press to flatten the shell into blanks. I did this dry but this step is usually done wet to control dust. Fortunetly I was given a new respirator about the time I did this! It was easy to do and the dimensions of the finished pieces was accurate enough. I did have some warm hole issues but since the shell was free I can't complain. I don't think I'll ever do it again.

You can actually buy abalone shells at Michael's, a craft supply store. If I remember correctly, they were about $12 apiece.

Darrin

I used to just wander in the shell shop down at the beach, when I was fishing. Hurricane Ike blew that away!
I'm not saying you shouldn't try it, but buying raw shell and making blanks is nasty work.

_________________
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

I found a few abalone shells at a local shell shop, they go for about 10 bucks a shell. I felt that given the amount of trouble it takes to process shells into usable pieces (assuming they are the right kind) I might as well buy inlay materials from "inlaidartist" on ebay because their prices are really good.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I have a buddy in California I dive for abalone with. He used to have all our shells in 5 gallon buckets in garage. I could check with him and see if he still has them. I only have a few at the house with me.

Ken

_________________
http://www.casperguitar.com