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Hey Everyone,

I am trying to do my 1st MOP rosette ring, and I can't figure out how the mitered joints should look. When they are butted up square against each other, I can clearly see the seam, or break between the pieces. Will this disappear under finish, or is it just something that is accepted? Is there a way to get it to look continuous?

Thank you for the help!

Jeff

As long as it isn't a large gap it will dissapear when Finished. I use CA to glue it in and it pretty much dissapears at that point.

Jeff, is this rosette white MOP or abalone? The white mop is very difficult to get perfect joints and will probably be nearly impossible to hide. If it's ab it will blend in failry well if you had good fitting joints. I suspect yours is white huh?

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

John is right there is no way to hide joints of White MOP. Abalone hides pretty easy due to color shift and pattern being like camoflauge but MOP will always show the joints.

[QUOTE=John How] Jeff, is this rosette white MOP or abalone? The white mop is very difficult to get perfect joints and will probably be nearly impossible to hide. If it's ab it will blend in failry well if you had good fitting joints. I suspect yours is white huh?[/QUOTE]

John,

It is indeed MOP. I inlaid a 3/32 blue abalone 1st, and then managed to sand through it! So I routed it out with a 1/4 bit and now what I have left is 1/4 MOP. So it is good to know that hiding the joints is next to impossible. I will have to figure out what to do now.   Might try MOP, wood, MOP.

Jeff

'Potential Wild Idea from the Novice' Alert:

I'm trying to think outside my tiny box on this. I've heard that some folks, like when they inlay the dots on an ebony fingerboard, sometimes mix some of the ebony dust in with the epoxy or CA to make the gap less visible.

Could you apply that idea to this problem? Of course using MOP dust instead of the ebony dust. On the other hand, that might not look too bad. Or would the joints still be visible because the way light would bounce off all those tiny particles?

If that doesn't work, is there anything you could put the MOP on top of in the inlay itself?

Shane.

You'll never hide those joints. Either change the art, bolden the joints to make them obviouse, or do something else. The color flash will be off, the grain will be relatively un-even, and it will look off.
Part of pearlwork is proper design, pure white MOP is hard to work in large areas.
Why not add a 1/8th sterling silver strip between the joints? That will stay color-on, and make it look intentional.

Craig Lavin

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Jeff,

If all else fails, turn out the lights...

Steve Brown

White MOP. OK forget my first post, I was assuming it was abalone. As people above sugested come up with a design that uses the joints.

Hopefully it does not look to bad.

Jeff

Remember a professonal is just someone who nows how to hide thier mistakes better

Craig

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www.handcraftinlay.com

Great job Jeff.

_________________
Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I've done MOP and I really like it. Sure you can see the joints, but not
many people think the rosette is all one solid piece of pearl anyway so it
is no biggie...

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com