: Not sure at all that it was dyed; I hadn't considered the
: possibility of lacquer. I assumed it was dyed because the
: Solar-Lux dyes seems to be what everybody uses.

: That inlay looks fantastic, BTW. What brand lacquer are you using?

Hello Stephen,

Actually these I buy already sprayed from Aqua Blue Maui. I have tried other brands and this guy is the best. his are sprayed on the back with a solid color, and then the front with lacquer, so you really get a brilliant red. Other suppliers only spray the back and you only see the color bleeding through the shell, which looks horrible! The only problem as I stated before, is that you cannot sand it AT ALL, or the lacquer comes off. You have to inlay it just right! Actually he told me that most people use them as an overlay and was shocked to hear that I use them for inlays. It's just a few mils thick, so you can overlay it, but I like the clean look of the inlay. I'm doing an inlay of the Virgin Islands flag on the board I'm building now and the "V I" will be in natural Abalone. I'll post a pic when it's done. The same Cross of St. James will be on this board on the bottom and this batch of Abalone (paua) is just gorgeous- very irridescent, and the clear one as well has amazing color and grain pattern. Going to be a real beauty.

You can spray your own with "candy lacquers" that are made for automotive use. The trick is to spray the back with a matching base coat so that the color shows up better, then the front with candy lacquer of the same color (for thin shell materail only). I used to use Ditzler candy colors for street rods, but an internet search didn't find much. It seems they're not making candy colors like they used to. Dupont appears to still make them http://pc.dupont.com/dpc/en/US/html/visitor/b/hh/s/color/HH_CMT_CandySelect.html

For a kayak you could just spray it on top of the epoxy, and if you didn't like it sand it off and try something else. Sure would beat dying the wood and having it come out wrong!