I’ve been playing around with different types of inlay, but for ease of use and instant gratification, there is no substitute for the mother of pearl flakes. This ornament took all of about a half hour, and I think it is just beautiful. The picture does not do it justice, as I’m sure you all know if you have worked with this before, it was just a whole new thing for me, and I absolutely love it! This was engraved in wenge and inlaid with fine grain mother of pearl flakes, then finished with tung oil.
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That is so neat. Is this the same mother of pearl material you mentioned yesterday?
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Yes it is! I got the combo on Amazon, one jar of “medium” flakes and one jar of “fine”. But honestly I can’t tell the difference between them. And it’s so soft you can just mush the stuff into the cracks (unlike the lapis which really is tiny pebbles). Just takes a bit of sanding to get rid of the excess CA glue, but I really like the result and wish I had discovered it sooner!
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That looks great!
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I think I’ll order some myself. Thank you.
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You definitely should, and I can’t wait to see what you do with it. I think this may be something I can finally use on the slab of black walnut I got almost a year ago. Until now, I hadn’t really had any good ideas of what to do with it, but I think this, plus a nice finish can make it something really cool (even if I don’t know what that is yet).
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I made a plaque for a dear friend that passed away recently. I attached one of these to it. I used a gold paint pen…
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Wow, that looks great!
Zowie! That does pack a punch! 
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Sweet work! So the sanding doesn’t dull the mother of pearl or make it look scratched? Did you use a particular grit of sand paper? I may need to get some MOP now…
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I’ve got some of that and haven’t really done much with it. Thanks for the inspiration!
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Didn’t seem to! I started at 120 and ended up at 320. Usually go higher than that, but this time I didn’t (wanted to see how it turned out, plus I was tired lol).
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I’m a sucker for mother of pearl but had absolutely no idea that it existed in flake form. Oh the possibilities!
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Beautiful! I love 8 pointed Snowflakes! And I need to try that technique!
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Nice!
I did the same thing using UV resin. You are right, pictures don’t come close to showing the colors in the Nacre. Snow flakes are a natural subject for it!
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Oh, that is interesting! I haven’t gotten brave enough to try resin yet. I feel like I would just make a huge mess of it.
Old school method was 5 min epoxy… Work quick! The resin allows unlimited work time, hit it with UV and done. I haven’t tried with CA glue - yet.
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Slower curing epoxy generally cures harder, so it is easier to sand. Also gives you more working time, of course.
This is from years of modeling work - I’ve never done inlay like this.
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Ha ha, that’s your snowflake! I got it from one of your free files. 
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