New fake abalone mirror

Re: New fake abalone mirror

Dick Coers

I'd suggest getting a shop to cut the mask on a vinyl or laser cutter. No rough spots that can show up with hand cutting. Are you clear coating after the paint? Looks like the paint is sitting proud.

Re: New fake abalone mirror

john lucas

I have been applying wipe on poly over the paint. It's a thin coat. It would take quite a few coats of this and just about as many spray on lacquer coats. I will probably give it a try on a later mirror just to see how it looks.

Re: New fake abalone mirror

David Walser

John -- What's lacking is a clear outline of each piece of shell in your pattern. If you had inlaid abalone into the mirror, there would be a visual indication at the edge of each piece of the shell where the wood stopped and before the shell begins. I think that visual indication is what you're lacking. You could use a very fine tipped wood-burning tool to create this effect, use two sets of masks, one slightly larger than the other, or outline each area with a fine tipped marker.

At least, that's my take from close to 3,000 miles away!

Re: New fake abalone mirror

John K Jordan

The effect of the color is great!!

David hit on what I was thinking too about the illusion. If pieces were inlaid you would probably see the edges of the wood where cut for the inlay, perhaps even burnished or very slightly rounded and catch the light. I too thought of using a woodburner on the outline, similar to a couple of pieces shown recently at the Crossville club where the outline was woodburned but the interior was painted - that was a nice effect.

I also wondered if pieces of abalone shell would have the kind of rounded edges of your shapes or broken pieces might be more angular with fewer curves and more corners. Also, would pieces of a real shell be flat or mostly slightly convex or concave? But I've never broken any abalone shell or even seen real abalone inlay so I'm just guessing based on ignorance!

JKJ