Official Luthiers Forum!

I have used turquoise granules in a rosette. I routed a chanel in a mesquite burl, filled the chanel with granules and flooded with CA glue. After the glue hardened I leveled with a disc sander in the drill press. I don't have pics available but the granules brightened things up for sure.

Just a warning when useing Malachite: It is very toxic and can kill you. The dust is lethal when dry. Always use a wet grinder to work with it so as not to breath the dust which can kill you!

Malachite is copper and its toxicity is negligible. "Malachite green" is a dye made from a chloride salt and is toxic. Recon malachite is made of a resin (smells like polyester but I don't know for sure and it probably varies from supplier to supplier) and the mineral. Of course you don't want to breathe the dust from ANY recon stone but I know of no reason to think that malachite is particularly toxic.

I've used malachite, lapis, coral, and turquoise crushed stone. There are a number of reasons for using them instead of the recon including using them around intricate shell inlays where cutting would take hours. You can get the striated or mottled effect by using several different materials, e.g. ebony dust and turquoise, gold flecks and lapis, coral and malachite. Practice and test before committing a good soundboard! I bond them with either a clear casting resin or CA but have found that the best results are achieved by creating "dams" of veneer or purfling at the edges of the rosette. These keep the CA from wicking into the surrounding wood. Brushing with shellac or lacquer might create enough of a seal to prevent wicking but in my experience, it's better to have a more secure barrier.

I've used recon turquoise for purfling, too. I had it laser-cut to 0.060" wide (approx. 0.060" thick, too), then inlaid it like shell strips with one important exception: It's fragile and breaks easily. Heating with a heat gun as it's placed allows it to bend like overdone pasta. It's still fragile and will pull apart but if handled with care, it goes in very nicely. I assume that other recon stone would act the same and intend to try it soon.

I cut it for the last rosette just like shell but it does crack easier. Backing it on thin wood with titebond helps and letting the pieces soak is a dish of water will release them easy enough. I've seen rosettes with crushed turq. laid into black epoxy that were pretty nice. Malachite would also be nice also.IMHO
I suppose you could also dye the epoxy to a color of your choice too and maybe even CA although I never tried to dye either so I could be wrong on that point.

This may have been answered in a previous reply but it seems that there are two different opinions. Can it be resawn on a regular bandsaw? Does it dull blades quickly? Any problems sending through a drum sander (clogged sandpaper, etc.?) or best done with lapidary equiptment?

Were are talking about recon stone right? It cuts better then shell as far as blades are concerned. Once again I cut it with my bandsaw jig in straight and curved strips and with a jeweler's saw for shapes or scroll saw sometimes . With my jig I use a 1/16"X .025"X 24TPI blade from DoAll Co. Order blades to length. It's pretty soft compared to shell that's why it cracks easier. If you are going to resaw it from a slab it wouldn't hurt to glue it to the backer strip first and cut to thickness if your going thinner then 1/8" and use a zero clearance insert and a blade that has enough teeth to clear the dust just like cutting wood the same thickness/width of the slab piece. At least that's how I've been cutting it. It's not like cutting stone because it's recon stone .

Good score on the saw. But for me the scroll saw is ok for larger stuff but I just can't use it for small and fragile pieces. The jewelers saw can't be beat for that. Fine blades and control and speed . There are some very small pieces in this 5th fret turtle shell marker that no way could be done on the scroll saw and the scroll saw only uses 1" of the blade.
By the way this was from my 1st. designed fret board and my 3rd. inlay project. So it doesn't take all that long to learn to use the J saw. I need to finish engraving that board some day even though I selected the patterns in the shell to work for me where I could or at least clean the 2nd and 3rd. fret. It almost looks like I knew what I was doing.