Interested in Hawaiian Koa wood?

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Nope, this is exactly the place to talk process :slight_smile: You’ll fit right in, welcome!

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That’s it! We had some offers to clear our trees :wink:

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“Let me get rid of that million-dollar forest for you”…“I won"t charge you a dime!” :money_mouth_face:

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definitely interested!! How about USPS Priority shipping. If it fits in the box, it ships at one low rate!

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Aloha Aaron. There are a few different methods for doing Abalone inlays, but at the risk of revealing our secrets, allow me to introduce you to the easiest by far; engrave the area you want the abalone to inlay into, making the engraved area just a hair bigger than the abalone piece. Then laser cut the abalone to match. Then peel off the adhesive backing very carefully and apply abalone to wood while heating abalone with a heat gun. https://www.mudhole.com/MicroFlex-Abalone-Shell-Inlays?gclid=Cj0KCQjw7ZL6BRCmARIsAH6XFDKnS3I6Vy5hFM7KDGHaicKpyZ0-zKP9hEpyc6AAZ8i29ApWTTpC510aAsoiEALw_wcB

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Thanks. So it must be artificial abalone. In Vcarve you do something similar but with angled cuts - female and male which is not possible with a laser cutter.
I would like some of that wood. How do I get some of that wood?

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Is there a reason that a laser would not burn through real abalone? It neatly cuts through everything else.

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Abalone shells, like most others, are essentially rock, composed of calcium carbonate.

I’ve never worked with them but would never have assumed they can be cut on a GF…

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It is super thin stuff

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Come to think of it, someone has posted designs with it - earrings I think?

I remember looking it up on Amazon…

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It was @amandarogers808
Successful crafting business in Hawaii

I bought some at the time. Just didn’t try it yet.

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That was it!

If I knew anyone with pierced ears, I might have tried it myself!

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The product is real Paua shell, just micro thin and adhered to an adhesive backing sheet.

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Koa is lovely wood. I am interested too!

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I love Koa!

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Aloha Dan! We’ve done some really wonderful stuff with our Glowforge and some Hawaiian Koa wood. If you like, we’d be happy to send a couple of pieces to GF for you guys to play with.

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YES! Sounds fabulous.

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So the Glowforge is creating a pocket and you adhere it to that?

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Actually you can. The laser is not cutting a perfectly perpendicular slice through the material. Thicker material will show the slant more than thin (try mating 2 pieces of acrylic together at a right angle and you’ll see right away). But this is often used to good effect for inlays - flipping the inlay over puts the widest part on top which makes for tight fitting inlay joints. Lots of posts about using the technique here including some from @evansd2 and other inlay gurus. :slight_smile:

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I call it “flip mating”, if you want to search more specifically.

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