Hello Greg,

I final shaped the deck and then I used a 1/2" chisel to hand route the groove for the stripes. To make the job easier, I used balsa where the abalone stripe went.

For the Robert August logo I traced it with a pencil onto the board and used a Dremel with a router base to hog it out, and a chisel to touch it up.

Here is the latest abalone inlay. I was proud of it because I cut it all by hand. The trick is to use masking tape on the back to keep it from falling apart. Glue with epoxy and it will soak into the masking tape and hold forever. All my abalone inlays are done this way except the stripes like on the RA board because they are simple straight cuts so no need for the masking tape backing.

I get the material from Aqua Blue Maui. www.aquabluemaui.com YOU CANNOT SAND IT!!! It is too thin. I forgot to mention that. You have to inlay it perfectly or you inlay it just a hair lower than the deck and do a skim coat of epoxy to level it off.