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I was starting to think of the traditional ways of doing headstock and fretboard inlays are to use shell, assorted woods among other things however has anyone ever tried using solder or gold leaf to do their inlays?? I want to do my signature at the top of my headstock much like Taylor does on their "R Taylor" guitar line and I am trying to figure out the best "pain-free" way to do so

Gold leaf is typically .0005" Thick and an typically used to colorize wood or other metals. Seems a good idea if you want to gold leaf a recessed signature. But it would take a lot to fill a channel of any depth if the intention is to reach flush to the outer veneer.

For a gold leaf look use have water transfer decals made up. They are pretty inexpensive. And there is more than likely a decal shop near you that can provide them for you. They are like the water transfer decals you probably used on model airplanes when you were a young boy. The decal will be under the finish and leave no ridge after you level the finish.

This may sound crazy, but something along the lines of gold sparkles in epoxy might actually look good. The possibilities are endless when you start thinking about granular, powdered, or other particulate materials mixed into epoxy (or CA, perhaps? - I'm not sure how well that would work).

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

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Michael (Wise)-
Are you thinking of melting the solder and 'casting' it into a recess, or just using it as a source of wire?
If the latter, you might want to check out 'silver wire inlay' on the web. Silver (square section) wire is often used for inlay on knives and guns (both into wood and metal), and I think I've seen it used on guitar headstocks as well. It's probably readily available in about any size you want if you can find a local jewellery maker with a rolling mill. Brass line and block inlay is also quite common.

Whether you are using wire, leaf, or some pourable substance, I think the tricky part will be milling the 'recess' unless you have CNC equipment, if you are looking for a fine line. (Most of the chisel-cut recesses I've seen on the web, on knives and guns, would probably not pass 'luthier QualityControl' inspection. ) Another possibility is having your headstock overlay routed and inlaid by one of the CNC gurus who do this sort of work- I'm sure you have thought of this already.



Cheers
John

Most metal inlays will tarnish over time; aluminum or gold would not, I guess. The silver wire inlay I've done has tended to turn black, and brass would go to green.

Gila Eban has used silver tube. She fills it with whatever, and slices it off to make the inlay. I have a pic she sent me years ago of a leaf pattern she made by cutting the tube at an angle to get ellipses, cutting off part of the ellipse at an angle to the long axis, and butting two pieces together. By filling it with a cross grain piece of wood that had the grain at an angle to the eventual cut across the axis, she got the veins of the leaves. Very cute, and tricky if you want to keep the silver line uniform in width all around.

At one point I saved a whole stack of those CDs that AOL used to send out, intending to do a 'mother of AOL' inlay. It would look better than the holographic sticky paper I saw in a cheapie once.

i once did fret marker inlays made fro old CDs. There I said. i promise I will never do it again

If you want to get kinda crazy with it, there is a craft material called Metal Clay http://www.metalclay.com/. It can be shaped and worked like clay, then gets fired/baked. It contains real metal (gold, silver, etc) and after firing is basically the same thing you'd get if you melted and cast something.

-Matthew

I would expect a fair amount in srinkage.

I'd recommend metal leaf over any sort of 'filled resin'. I messed around with various paints, mixing flakes in epoxy, etc, when I was getting started and nothing came close to the look of leaf with the exception of actual solid metal. Wire inlay is a real option, though as others have said it's hard to get it to look 'luthier-grade'.

A jeweller told me that real silver (pure, not sterling) won't tarnish, nor will gold. Aluminum won't tarnish, but is too hard to use as wire inlay. There's a company called Rio Grande that sells all kinds of jewellery supplies, including metal wire, that was recommended to me by some jewellers.

_________________
Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

FWIW, I laser cut my logo into my headstock plates (it's a subtle fine line logo), then fill with gold acrylic paint. Looks great. Not noticed any tarnishing so far.

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

I used brass wire for the dot side markers in the fingerboard of a guitar I built in 1981.
They are not quite as shiny now as when new, but still very reflective and presentable-looking.
They were covered with lacquer when I finished the guitar, so have been mostly protected from the air. Also, the guitar has not seen very heavy use and lives in its case..
My wife has a small wooden box from Kashmir which has extensive unprotected brass inlay. Over the course of a few years, the brass becomes dull brown-ish. A quick polish with wadding (DuraGlit or NevrDull) or lemon juice brings back the shine.

So, if I had the impulse to use brass inlay and the skill to do it, I wouldn't be overly concerned about corrosion/green patina on brass.
(Not for use in a marine environment! )

Cheers
John

thanks for the help guys, this is really helping me figure out what I need to do

Alan is right about aluminum. I inlaid alum in a couple of guitars back in the early eighties. Recently, one of the guitars came back to my shop for a re-finish job. The aluminum inlay still looked great & the nitro lacquer was still sticking to it just fine.
I like aluminum, because it sands away at the same rate as Ebony. Easy to level & it polishes up very nicely.
The last guitar I finished had an aluminum & abalone vine fingerboard inlay. I used four different thicknesses of material so the branches tapered towards the nut. I hammered & filed the ends to a taper at the tips of the vine.
To get the material I needed, I cut fine strips of aluminum sheet on a shear. Cheap! And effective. Most sheet metal shops could supply the material.

Here is a site that talks about ways to 'etch' metal...and has some info on using the technique to cut shapes out too. May give some folks ideas.

http://steampunkworkshop.com/electroetch.shtml

-Matthew

It's been a long time since I read this -- literally decades, so I hope I'm remembering this correctly -- but I think Wolfgang Zuckermann's book The Modern Harpsichord discusses polished brass inlays into wood. Circa 1980 it was common for the makers to inlay their names above the keyboard in polished lacquered brass lettering. Perhaps it still is.

You can do string inlay using brass wire and it looks quite nice in dark or red woods. It can easily be scraped flush and will retain it's shiny appearance if you finish over it. I have not had any issues with shellac adhering to it.

-jd