Hi Everyone, I have a bit of a dilema. Heres what happening, a friend of mine wanted me to build a cue with Ivory that he provided from an old cue ball. I looked at the outside and it had many hairline crackes but once I took it to the bandsaw and cut it into slabs, they seemed fine. Nice and smooth and seemed intact. Anyway when I inlayed the cue which by the way had over 100 inlays, found that some of them cracked . Some on the very tips, some in the middle. So I went ahead and recut new ones to replace these but had a devil of a time removing them without cracking the outside woods. Monster of a headache. Got it mostly looking good but still scratching my head as to why they cracked. From dryness or what? My cues are about .020 oversize when I inlay and the pockets are .1260 deep and inlays are .1350 thick with plenty of meat. Any ideas?
Ivory Inlays cracking
- Thread starter kiinstructor
- Start date
Once the inlays are in and epoxied with a slow cure epoxy that gets hard. They should be fine. Maybe the original installer did not compensate the pocket big enough and stressed them while forcing them to fit.
Who knows, just my 2 cents.
Rick
Who knows, just my 2 cents.
Rick
Next time you cut slabs, you may want to let the ivory sit for a couple of weeks. It is similar to wood in that every cut exposes that face to a new environment.
Also, the hairline cracks may not have been visible in the newly cut slab. You can put a little black stain on ivory to check for cracks. It will wick in and show up better.
Also, the hairline cracks may not have been visible in the newly cut slab. You can put a little black stain on ivory to check for cracks. It will wick in and show up better.
If there is any question about cracks, run a colored Sharpie pen or any other dye stuff over the ivory and sand it off when dry. Any crack will show up.