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Anyone have a source for these?

I didn't look through his catalog, but I guess if anyone has it or could make it for you, it would be Andy DePaule at http://www.luthiersupply.com .

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sweat the small stuff.

Andy DePaule is DeMan. Look at his individual inlay # 0073. I think that matches what you are looking for.

Yeah I checked out DePaule and I did see that 0073. That's about as close as it gets but not spot on. That one looks more like a clover where as the one I am after looks more like Knights Templar cross or something. But that one is probably close enough and thank you for the suggestions..

Andy is pretty accommodating. He would probably cut what you want for a reasonable price.

Don - did you look at # 0020?

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

0020 looks very close too perhaps even closer.

Gosh, those are tiny! I missed 0020. Yeah, that looks pretty good. Again, though, if you want an exact match, I bet Andy will do it for you and not charge an unreasonable amount.

One more suggestion would be #215.

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sweat the small stuff.

Seriously, how hard would it be to make these with a piece of pearl and a jeweler's saw?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

It looks difficult to me that's why I'd rather buy them. I've tried my hand at cutting pearl. Maybe I just don't get it?

Plus it seems to me that the cost in time to hand cut them myself vs buying is not a practical one.

How would you go about cutting something so small?

I guess the technique is to actually glue the pearl to a substrate, cut it, then delaminate it?

How to you pencil out the outline?

It is very difficult to cut those tiny buggers and get them anywhere close to even. Andy's Vietnamese folks do a very good job and it is hand cut, so there are some tiny variations. Looks very "original" and not CNC'd.

Yeah they do a good job even showing that up in their pictures. I like that actually. I don't farm out any work except inlay, I just can't do it. Well I probably could but I don't feel like investing the time. I do actually inlay the stuff but I can't cut anything complicated. For this customers guitar I am also going to get a torch inlay from Depaul. http://luthiersupply.com/torch-classic-peg-head.html

No way I'd want to cut that myself!

I used to cut my own inlay and I have suffered for it. It's about as healthy as breathing lacquer fumes.
What is nice is that for a few bucks, they will develop your drawings and refine them. This was an inlay that I used to hand cut myself.



I could never hand cut a logo like that. Pretty darn good symmetry on that flowerpot too...

Yeah that's a beauty right there.