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On eBay there is a Ren Ferguson/Gibson that has purfling that looks interesting. It looks like fools-gold set into a matrix of black epoxy, and is a nice treatment.

I asked the owner if he knew what it was and got this answer :


The instrument is here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gibson-SJ-200-M ... TQ:US:1123

Any ideas? I'm having difficulty posting a picture.

Hard to say for sure from the pictures, but on a guitar like that, I would guess
'black pearl'. Very high quality.
But just a guess.

Brent

A person could contact Ren Ferguson and ask. He works someplace else now, right?

Tangent: I'm a bit stunned by the price tag. Even being a deep lover of guitars, I can't see spending $40,000.00 on a single guitar.

Along those lines, it seems to me that a person selling a $40,000.00 guitar that was built in modern times, by people who are still alive, should have a better response to questions about construction. If he doesn't know the answer, he should go find out, if he wants $40,000.00 for the thing. Again, I'm probably just having a negative reaction to the price.

I hear you. Yeah, Ren has an arrangement with Guild now, I think.
I'm in no way in the market for the guitar, so I was happy just to get an answer from the seller.
I bet it's pieces of gold leaf carefully plopped into black epoxy in a channel left by pulling a teflon strip, then flooded with clear. None of the pieces of gold seem to be cut next to the bwb purfling...

Anybody have other ideas or recognize the material?

Could it be Inlace?
Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I think Steve is right about the gold leaf. But it would be set in clear epoxy, not black.

My thoughts are that it is gold leaf too.

_________________
Another day, another dollar.

Described as gold sparkle dust here.
https://gibsonsupreme.wordpress.com/201 ... ic-guitar/

_________________
Another day, another dollar.

If I was selling a $40k guitar, I would only answer questions from people who had $40k to buy guitars with!

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https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

If I had a $40k guitar I wouldn't be trying to sell it on eBay.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I recently built a guitar with similar purfling, although I can only guess that the gold flakes are indeed gold flakes. Look here and at the next picture for a Kim Walker guitar built for John Thomas:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/ ... 776959267/

I contacted Kim, and between him and John found out how it was done - luthiers are very generous. Teflon strips are laid into the channel just like with pearl purfling. When the Teflon is pulled out, the cavity is colored, in this case black. Then a combination of different colored glitter (yes glitter from the craft store) in clear epoxy is poured into the cavity so that it is just below the surface - John remembered gold, silver, rose , and one other color in there. Once that is dry, more clear epoxy is poured in to fill - this is so you won't shave off any of the glitter edges and dull it as you level and polish. If you advance about 25 pictures, you can see how I did this in the rosette, and then 50 past that to see the purfling. Then advance about 25 past that and you will see how gold leafing (in this case the head) can leave little pieces of gold about the right size and shape to match the guitar in question. However, those little pieces are extremely hard to handle and they look very even and well installed - a mystery.

And if you go about 3-4 earlier than the first slide, you can see I found a couple of Ren's guitars as inspiration too.

Ed