Abalone or shell casting

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I recently took interest in making an Abalone inlay blank for a kitless rollerball pen. So while on vacation in Florida last week I stopped in at Mudhole (the makers of the 1st video) and checked out their Abalone inlays. The main problem with their heat and roll method is that there is a very noticeable seem and the measurement of the inlay and cut has to be dead nuts accurate to avoid any gap or overlay. That being said if a person is ok with one seem, rather than a whole bunch of seems which seems to be the method that the commercial makers of the Abalone blanks are using, and good with cuts then that might be the easiest way to go.

I'm gonna cut the Abalone in thin strips and glue it to either an acrylic or alumilite blank (turned round) then cast it with resin. I played around with it a little last night and the 1 st problem I encountered is getting the strips to line up perfectly straight. Also the veneer is brittle so moving it around a lot tends to crack it. Anyways, I'm gonna work on it some more tonight and see how it goes.:)
 
thank you for the replies. Ive looked at the veneer but like you said there will be a seam however it might not look bad if you have multiple seams like the manufactured versions. I might buy some and try it its not that expensive to experiment. Charlie69 Im interested in seeing how your blanks turn out. Thanks for the info Hawkdave.
 
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