Online Course on Inlay Techniques for Musical Instruments: Learn how to inlay your guitar, banjo, or mandolin!

The Musical Instrument Makers Forum
presents
An Online Inlay Course:
Inlay Techniques for Musical Instruments
Learn how to inlay your guitar, banjo, or mandolin!

This course will be offered as two workshops of 6 lessons, each lasting 6 or 7 weeks. You may sign up for one or both. Both workshops will be taught by Amy Hopkins of Stringed Instrument Repair, New Freedom, PA. Bill Moll of Moll Custom Instruments, Springfield, MO, will teach an independent unit on turning a portrait into an inlay as part of the Advanced Workshop.

The Basic Workshop will run from May 10^th - June 21^st, and the Advanced Workshop will run from July 5^th - Aug 23^rd. The cost is $110 for one workshop, $185 for both workshops. You ONLY get the discount if you sign up for both in advance! If you decide later that you enjoyed the Basic Workshop so much that you also want to take the Advanced Workshop, the discount will NOT apply!! If you have any questions about the workshops, please ask them in this discussion.

Basic Workshop, May 10^th - June 21^st
Enrollment in the Basic Workshop is now closed.

Basic Workshop schedule:

Week 1: Preparation
        Basic tools, basic materials, workspace, lighting.
Week 2: Laying out and cutting
        Adjusting for size, gluing up patterns, basic cutting techniques.
Week 3: Transfer
         Layout on fingerboard and headstock, routing and insetting.
Week 4: Installation
        Gluing in the pearl, filling, sanding, installing dots.
Week 5: Useful Techniques
        Cutting commonly used shapes, cutting metals.
Week 6: Wrapping it up
        Correcting common mistakes, finishing, fretting.

Advanced Workshop, July 5^th - Aug 23^rd
Enrollment in the Advanced Workshop is now closed.

Advanced Workshop schedule:

Weeks 1 and 2:
        Choosing an existing picture: adapting a painting, drawing or photo into a usable inlay design.
        Drawing an original inlay: how to use your artistic skills to draw usable inlay designs.
        Working with customers: weighing what is possible with their needs and desires.
        Choosing materials for your design: options for color and texture within an inlay.
        Rounding up your materials.
Week 3:
        Working your design within the confines of the instrument: fingerboard, headstock, soundhole.
        Tools that you can make to help make things easier.
        Extra: How to inlay shell binding for edges and rosettes.
Week 4:
        Setting up and gluing patterns for cutting.
        Considerations in cutting various materials: ablam, metals, stone, wood, etc.
        Cutting the inlay and preliminary filing and fitting of the pieces.
        Extra: Working with Recon stone, metal, and other non-shell materials, problems and how to adapt.
Week 5: Engraving mini-workshop
        Shading and adding texture with engraving.
        Engraving faces.
        Bill Moll's portrait inlay, lesson 1.
Week 6:
        Assembling the parts.
        Dealing with different materials, different thicknesses, and working within precise depth confines.
        Gluing up the whole unit, final fitting of all the parts.
        Layout, routing and installation of the inlay.
        Inlay on light colored wood, its problems and how to correct them.
        Extra: putting simple inlays into an already fretted fingerboard.
        Bill Moll's portrait inlay, lesson 2.
Week 7: Wrapping it up
        Leveling the inlaid material.
        Shading and adding texture.
        Finishing: details and options for final finish and polishing.
        Extra: inlaying curved surfaces, violin fingerboards and tailpieces, pegs.
        Bill Moll's portrait inlay, lesson 3.

Student enrollment is limited, and will be awarded on a "first paid first served" basis. We recommend early enrollment so you have time to get your tools and materials together, and because the last time we offered these workshops the Basic Workshop filled up and we had to turn people away.

How do you enroll? First, you MUST register as a member of the MIMForum if you are not already a registered member. Then come back here and fill out and submit this secure form to pay by credit card. If you are outside the US and Canada, would like to take the course, and don't have a credit card, you may pay by wire transfer -- please e-mail for information on how to do so. US and Canadian residents ONLY may fill out then print the form and snail-mail it to this address to pay by money order (payable to In The Tradition, Inc.):

In The Tradition, Inc.

PO Box 223

Deer Isle, ME 04627
Please note that there is an additional shipping charge for enrollees outside of the USA, please don't forget to add the shipping costs to your payment. Once payment has been received you will be notified via e-mail. The workshop sections will open two weeks before the nominal start-date for "getting ready" work, and will remain open for ONLY two weeks after the workshop ends, for wrapping up. We will be adhering rigidly to this schedule so students MUST keep up with the lessons! There will be no time to catch up after the workshop sections are closed!

Please note that we plan to release the course contents, perhaps including some of the discussions, in printed form (for sale) after the completion of the course. By signing up, you agree to release your copyright on any message you post in these workshops. You retain your copyright to all messages you post in any other section of the MIMForum.

Go to Enrollment Form
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