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I'm rounding up supplies for my first build. I want to use abalone for the rosette and other decoration. I see the ablam on Stu Mac costs about $65. Ouch!! I find many more sources online for 75% less.

How thick should the ablam be?

I have a lot of abalone shells laying around from my diving days. I have cut them up many times on a wet saw to use in mosaic tile work but never tried slicing that thin.

How do you slice abalone shell that thin.?

I don't want to buy precut rosettes.

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http://goatrockukulele.com

Most shell is grinded on a stone until it is of the desired thickness. You can look at Andy DePaule's site and see some of it. It requires specialized equipment. Andys site is called Luthiersupplies.com I believe. You can find a lot of supplies at The Duke of Pearl. He has the patent for Ablam. It is expensive, but worth the money. You probably don't want to use any shell less than 0.40" thick. I use 0.60. You can also look at the product known as Zipflex. It is used by many professionals. Also, very expensive. If you plan on using Abalone, be prepard to invest some serious money into it. That is why guitars that are heavily inlaid with Abalone cost so much. Abalone is softer than pearl, and is harder to cut, without breaking. But it is easy to inlay, and mistakes are easily concealed. You can actually use straight strips in the soundhole inlay, and break them as you insert the strips into the channel. You cannot see the breaks after it is filled and sanded.
You may be able to find some tutorials on this site or even Youtube.
Good Luck....

Michael, you may want to hang on to those Abalone shells. Abalone is getting more and more difficult to find these days. Some of them are protected in certain areas of the world. Your shells may be worth something someday. Also, there is a person on eBay that sells shell at a very resonable price. His name is Len Wood. I have his email address if you need it. I buy a lot of Gold pearl from him. It is great to practice with.....

Although I generally don't recommend it because of the mess, I have ground abalone shell into blanks just using a drill press and a grinding wheel after cutting slices with a wet saw. The wheel was nothing special, I used the grinding wheel that came with my safety-planer. I put on a pair of gloves, squeeze the shell between the drill press bed and the wheel. A few passes to get flat sides and then the right thickness. A respirator is a must. A vacuum cleaner could help a lot with the dust.

Normally shells are ground wet underwater to control dust but I didn't want to play in water around my drill press.

You don't need very much shell for most rosettes, you can do this yourself. If I dove for the shells I would grind them and use them on a guitar.

John

Michael,
Here is a link to DePaules website. Scroll down through the pictures and you can see a picture of a machine designed to grind shell flat. It uses water also, so it keeps the dust down and cools the shell. I'm sure you could come up with a method to do this, but is it worth the trouble and time?
http://www.luthiersupply.com/vngallerypage.html

Thanks for the replies, they got me going in the right direction. I found I can simply grind pieces of shell flat and about the right thickness by hand on my tilesaw. I cut the shell in rectangles of the size that would go flat. Then I just held them flat against the side of the tile saw blade by hand and ground them flat. I finished the last thousandth or so on my Makita wet power hone and bang in 30 minutes I had enough abalone shell blank to do a healthy rosette and maybe a truss rod cover with the most beautiful piece.

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http://goatrockukulele.com

Pearl Inlay by James Patterson has a section in the back on grinding shell. If you are into doing that. Take note that once you strips start to get over 1/16" wide they become more difficult to break, even ablam/abalam . Which is softer the shell and not abalone that was a type error in the one above post. Also the wider the strip then the more the break around curves will be noticed. I wouldn't try to use straight pieces in a rosette unless. Even at 1/16" you would have to do a lot of breaking and the segments might be noticable especially with solid shell. But that's your call and it's your guitar. There is a great jig for cutting curved pieces and straight strips of shell/wood on a bandsaw in the Tutorial section that can be made for about $20 in parts.
You might also want to check over at MIMF in there library about grinding shell. There might be some stuff there or ask Mark Swanson about it.