GET INLAID

After I finished the smaller piece I headed back to the bigger design to start sanding it. It was then that I discovered that one point (the top one) of the abalam was not seated all the way into the cavity, and when I pushed in on it, it broke the tip into a couple pieces, and then they fell into the bottom of the cavity, considerably lower than the rest, while still-wet glue oozed out. Oops.

It was a big problem, and essentially ruined the piece, but I was still riding high on the success of the smaller one, so I decided to take it through the end of the process anyway. I filled gaps with ebony dust, soaked them with some thin superglue and let it sit overnight.

Sunday, then, I went back to the sanding, and found that I was not happy with the way the abalam was sanding.

Let’s talk about the abalam. I purchased just one piece, and I am grateful now that’s all I bought. Sometimes cheapness can transmogrify into accidental foresight. I don’t know that I will buy abalam again. What it is is a laminate of very thin layers of shell, shell that normally would end up in the trash because it’s too thin to sell as blanks. They color-match it, laminating the thin sheets with epoxy so that you can get bigger pieces that are supposedly consistent throughout the piece, and it is supposed to saw and sand just like real shell. This process allows for bigger pieces of shell, and allows producers to get more out of an abalone.

I will admit the possibility that it is my own lack of skill working with it that caused me problems, but I can only say what I experienced, and it wasn’t great. The layers have a tendency to flake and break, like mica, which is the problem I had with the break I had, and they didn’t want to reglue. And while it saws and sands easily, it doesn’t sand well, to my eye. It didn’t shine up like real shell after the 6-step sanding process, and the wood dust seems to get caught in I-don’t-know-what. Crevices between layers? The epoxy between the layers? I don’t know, but the abalam had these nasty gray streaks in some spots, and it was holding on to the ebony dust for dear life. The only way I could remove the streaks is by rubbing over the whole thing with straight acetone.

Ultimately, because of the break on the one point, this piece was moribund before I finished it, so I didn’t do a lot of clean-up of it after I finished sanding, and you can see the fairly obvious edge of superglue around it. My efforts to fill the gaps were less than successful. There are little air bubbles in it, too, that I would’ve cleaned out with an Exacto knife, but didn’t bother on this one, since it was a goner anyway.

I sanded it, but didn’t oil it. I’ve added it to the collection of “learning experiences” on my bench. I only sanded around the design because the clamp was in the way, but I like seeing the difference between untouched ebony and sanded on the same piece. Have I mentioned how much that tickles me?

And with that, Project #4 comes to an end. It took awhile, but I’ve seen some real progress in my skills through it. Next up, the art deco design.  I’m excited. I was thinking of buying reconstituted obsidian for her hair and the shadows on her face, but I have this ebony, so I might just use that. I know it shines up nicely. I picked up the proper thickness of maple for her body. As I’m envisioning it right now, everything is wood except for the sun she’s holding, which would be MOP and gold MOP. That might be unbalanced, with all the wood below and the shell above. Her body could be white MOP, too, though that might be weirdly cold for a skin tone. I’ll have to think about it some more. I will be busy playing host to my folks over the holiday weekend, so I probably won’t get back to work on inlay until the following weekend.