Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

Inlays - how are these done?

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic23615.aspx

By atlantis - 7/3/2017 2:39:04 PM

Hi everyone

This is a question for advanced users: Below you see some pictures of carbon fibre resonator guitars built by the late luthier Alan Timmins:

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/72f95bf2-de88-45e5-a8d9-485a.jpg
http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/ac4a1ce0-bd6d-4914-aa11-adaa.jpg
http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/4340f3f7-ff18-4e63-b5fc-f4ba.jpg
http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/d8857b46-f27e-4fed-a812-089c.jpg


Can anyone tell how these very nice inlays are done? A close up view would be very interesting but unfortunately I don't own any of these instruments - guesses are that only around 12 were made in total.

I think the silhouettes are cut from some kind of highly polished foil or very thin sheet metal but how are they built into the laminate? First I thought he might have applied a clear gelcoat to the mould and then put the pieces in before the fabric but I doubt this would work, I guess the surface of the gelcoat would have to have almost a mirror-like polish for that to work...

However if they were glued on after demoulding, how would it be possible to apply a top coat so thick that it completely fills between the inlays for polishing?

Regards
Martin
By atlantis - 7/4/2017 10:09:37 AM

If so, would that be gelcoat that's applied over the stickers or something special? I planned on using GC50 gelcoat pigmented in black inside the mould because I'm not too confident of doing visible carbon right away but silver on black would be a killer effect also. Would GC50 (this time without pigment of course) also be suitable for such a top coat on top of the stickers?

Apart from a lot and lot of sanding this way it doesn't sound that difficult to do indeed. The danger I see is sanding off too much in one go before applying another coat if necessary which would ruin it all...