Waiting
After my cascading technical failures last week, there has not been much happening on the inlay front as I wait for new supplies. I ordered new ebony headstock pieces from Luthier’s Mercantile (they had the best price, especially if you ordered in quantity, so I got 6), and 2 sets of dental burrs from Woodcraft. I’d noticed them when I was in the store a few weeks back, when I was chagrined to find I’d paid 75% more for them on eBay. I would’ve ordered just the one set, but now that I know that they break more easily than expected, I’d rather have a back-up. However, my inability to do inlay this weekend meant that a lot of chores around the house got done this weekend, and the new puppies take up a lot of time, too.
Also, my order of shell came from Australia, also an eBay purchase from a seller I got stuff from before.
I got mother of pearl, gold MOP, and some green abalone. I’m pleased with the first two, although the green abalone wasn’t of good quality, certainly worse than the smaller pieces I got from them before. Maybe you can’t get good big pieces? I got it at a discount, though, so I’m not going to gripe much. The pieces of MOP are gorgeous with some interesting figure in some of them. The gold MOP actually comes from the lip of the same shells as the white MOP comes from. The gold layer is very thin, and you have to be careful to try to inlay it all flush, so that you have to do minimal sanding, because you’ll sand right through to white without too much effort. I want it for the sun in my next design, so it’s going to be tricky.
So until I get the new ground and new burrs in, that’s all, folks. 
