Interview with Cliff Suttle of Shark Inlay
Interview by Ron of Boutique Guitar Resource
Cliff Suttle founded Shark Inlay in 2001 (sharkinlay.com), a company that supplies inlay art all over the world from Australia to Zimbabwe. He works with luthiers all over the planet and has done inlays for famous guitarists such as Lemmy from Motorhead. A master inlay artist, Cliff studied art at the University of Michigan.
Boutique Guitar Resource: How did you get involved with guitar inlay work?
Cliff Suttle: It all started back in the late 90′s when I was one of the lead writers for Harmony-Central.com, back when they had writers. I use to cover the NAMM show for them. In doing so, I dreamt up an award program called “The Golden Axe Awards,” where we would pick out the best 10 guitars at the show. They were all amazing guitars with unique designs, paint jobs, and often dripping with inlay. In 2000, the PRS Dragon 2000 won the award as the #1 guitar. It was at that point that I fell in love with inlay and especially guitar inlay. About two years later, I decided to give it a try as a hobby. Well, after I had inlaid pretty much everything in the house, including the drive way, I began driving my family nuts. Then one day a friend asked me to make him a few truss rod covers for him. When I gave them to him, he asked how much he owned me. MONEY, did he say money? Two weeks later I launched my web-site. It took me three months to get my first order. Three weeks to get my second order and only three days to get my third. I have never looked back.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Are you self taught or did you have a mentor help you out in the beginning?
Cliff Suttle: The first year I did “The Golden Axe Awards,” mentioned above, I received a call from a nice guy named Ron Thorn. I had no idea who he was at the time, but it turns out he inlaid three of the guitars in the final ten. He was thrilled. His phone was ringing off the hook and he wanted to thank me. Ron said if I ever wanted a favor give him a call. When I decided to try inlay, I wondered how to learn this skill. There is only so much you can learn from a book. But then I remembered that I knew one of the best inlay guys in the business. I called Ron up and he talked to me for hours. Told me everything I needed to get started, including supplier names and more. Over the next few months he was a great source for questions and encouragement. It was sort of like a little league football quarterback getting advice from Bret Favre. I really had a great start thanks to Ron. Today Ron is making his own line of custom made guitars that are really great.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Have you been influenced by other inlay artist and if so who would you say has had the most influence on your work?
Cliff Suttle: Yes and no. I love looking at other inlay artists’ work, but I have never even tried to copy any of them. Right from the start I was in search of my own style. I have always loved the paintings of Frank Frazetta through. Frank did the artwork for most of the Molly Hatchet album covers. I have always appreciated his use of color and design flare. Frank is a definite influence even though he is not an inlay artist.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Tell us a little about your business and what services your provide?
Cliff Suttle We supply one off inlays and production inlays for anything on wood. Mainly what we do is musical instruments, but we also do jewelry, cigar boxes, furniture parts, key chains, etc. From one piece to a thousand we can supply it. We work with a number of luthiers, but always show the same level of professionalism to the single piece buyer. I think that is why we have such a long testimonial section on our web-site.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What skills do you feel are necessary in order to be successful at inlay work?
Cliff Suttle: First and foremost you have to be able to draw. An artist is an artist is an artist no matter what media they use to express it. The ability to draw is the building blocks of all art whether you make paintings, cakes, motorcycles, or inlaid guitars. I have heard people complain about artists that use cam machines or computers to make their art. Yes, I agree I have seen engineers use technology to simulate art, but they will never be true artists. If you give a true artist a piece of paper and say draw an apple, you’ll get pretty much something that looks like an apple. I draw and paint, but inlay is my media of choice. It’s the art form I enjoy, but if inlay didn’t exist I would do something else artistic. It’s just in my blood. My Father was a painter and gave me the bug.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Tell us how the process usually works when a customer hires you to do some inlay work on their instrument.
Cliff Suttle: Usual is a tough word in this business. Every client wants to do it their own way and that’s fine with me. Some come to me with their own artwork, some supply bad sketches on napkins, some have no idea what they want and I have to talk them through the process. And now and then a customer tells me their budget and then gets out of my way. Those are the ones I like best.
The “Roc” was done that way.
Shark Roc Inlay
When I talk someone though the process, I know the questions to ask. The best inlay work is work that matters to the client, that they have an emotional attachment to. The two pictured t-covers are perfect examples of what I mean. The badge t-cover was made for someone who’s father had passed away and was a police officer. 719 was his badge number. The baby foot t-cover was made to honor a man’s son who died in child birth. I always ask people what turns them on; birds, cars, crosses, insects, what floats their boat. Maybe it’s boats. I’ve done those too.
Badge Truss Rod Cover Inlay
Baby Foot Truss Rod Cover Inlay
Boutique Guitar Resource: Once you have the inlay artwork created and approved by the customer, what is the typical wait time for delivering the finished product?
Cliff Suttle: That would depend on what is being ordered and how complex it is. Truss rod covers are normally turned around in two weeks. I’ve been working on the Viking guitar for two months already and probably have another month to go.
Viking Guitar by Shark Inlay
Boutique Guitar Resource: What type of materials do you prefer to work with when creating the inlays?
Cliff Suttle: I like natural materials. I will use plastics or acrylics if I have no other choice, but I would prefer not to. I love wood, real shells, metals, etc. Now the stone I use is actually recon-stone which is a stone that has been ground up and put back together with resin. This is pretty much the industry standard material and is used by all the great inlay guys. Real stone does present a number of problems. First off, it’s as hard as a rock 
Second is the weight. If you added a lot of stone to a fretboard for instance, you would change the balance point of the guitar and that wouldn’t be a good thing. Third, real stone has a lot of flaws in it that would cause problems with the inlay. Recon-stone is easier to cut, sands very much like mother of pearl, and is much lighter weight than real stone. Plus it looks great. The invention of this material was a real boon to the inlay artist.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Are there any limits? Do some ideas work better as inlays than others?
Cliff Suttle: Yes, there are definite limits. You can do things with a pencil or paint that you can’t do with inlay. For instance, you can shade from red to blue with paint, but you can’t shade from red to blue with pieces of stone. It’s red and then pow it’s blue. This is the biggest problem I have with people who supply artwork, is their artwork has a lot of shading. This can made it hard to convert to appropriate inlay art.
The second limitation has to be with the materials it’s made of. Sometimes clients want designs with lots of little pieces half the size of a pin head. These pieces have to be physically cut, glued, and handled. Little or very thin pieces will often crack or disappear on the floor somewhere. The last limitation is the space of the piece of wood I’m inlaying into. Many times a client will want a square design inlaid into a guitar fretboard. Fretboards are not a square area. If you shink the design to fit on the board it’s so small you can’t tell what it is. Beyond that, I can do pretty much anything.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What do you feel makes you unique as an inlay artist?
Cliff Suttle: I’m an out of the box thinker. A perfect example is my t-covers. Many of my covers go outside the shape of the cover. In fact, it’s sort of become my trademark. There are other inlay companies doing this now, but as far as I know, I was the first and they just copied me. The reaction I got to the first one I did that way was staggering. People loved it, people hated it, people thought I was the second coming, people thought I was the anti-Christ. It was a crack up and I knew I was on to something. Anything that invokes that kind of passion both good and bad had to be an exciting thing. I was talking with Bob Taylor of Taylor Guitars once about this very subject. He said that he loves when people hate his guitars because it generates conversation and that’s a good thing. I think his exact quote was, “if I was the only one making acoustic guitars and everyone loved them, acoustic guitar magazine would be only ten pages thick and nobody would care.”
That’s the way I feel. I know my work isn’t for everyone and that’s great. I think what makes me unique as an inlay artist is I’m OK with that. It’s allows me to be true to my style and to have passion for my style. Passion is what art is all about in my opinion.
Boutique Guitar Resource: You have incorporated CNC machines into your business model. What made you decide to go in this direction and how does it benefit your work?
Cliff Suttle: I first decided to purchase a CNC machine in order to handle production runs. When you do inlay by hand, 100 pieces of the same design would pretty much drive you insane. So I bought one. I swore at the thing daily for probably the first three months during the learning curve. I remember dreading the day I bought it more than once. However, like any good tool, once you’ve mastered it, it will do nothing but help. I love CNC’s now. You’ll have to rip it from my cold dead fingers. The work I can do with a CNC is much better than I can do by hand. I was good doing it by hand (as evidenced by
the Vine of Death shown below), but I can do way better now. The tolerances of my CNC machine is 1/10000 of an inch. The amount that your heartbeat makes your hand move is 1/100 of an inch. I can cut far smaller, much sharper, and completely repeatable pieces that would be impossible by hand. Plus, I know when I’m done everything is going to fit. Look at the claws on the Dragon Strike t-cover. I have made 8 of these and they all look great.
Vine of Death Inlay
Dragon Strike Truss Rod Cover Inlay
I know some people think of CNC’s as cheating some how. This doesn’t make any sense to me. These same people use routers, depth gages, rotary sanding, and lots of other technologies. If you don’t believe in technology, why not pound it out with a chisel and a hammer. This machine has greatly increased my ability to express my art, greatly reduced my swearing to smiling ratio, and improved the quality of my work. At this point I can’t imagine being in business without one. It so funny to here a luthier scream about hand made, hand made, hand made, until he can finally afford a CNC and then you never hear him say that again.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What would be your advice for someone that wants to get started doing inlays?
Cliff Suttle: Do it! Get a book like the one Larry Robinson wrote and give it a try. Be patient and realize that your first pieces won’t be great and be OK with that. Every mistake is one more step toward getting it right.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What part of your work do you enjoy most?
Cliff Suttle: My favorite part of my work is when I open up the guitar case and show someone their long awaited dream guitar and watch the smile on their face. Or, when I get a email back from someone who just opened up a package from me. Many times you can just feel their excitement right through the email. When I get an email like this:
“It just arrived a few minutes ago. Oh, My God!. You are correct sir, the pictures cannot possibly capture how good this is. I hope you are still real proud of this because you should be! The MOP just sparkles and the glasses turned out terrific. The hair is perfect. The pictures just don’t capture how good it is. I really enjoyed working with you on this and hope I can steer some more work your way. I am planning on having Shawn build another guitar in a few years so don’t retire! Thanks for everything!”
I just smile the rest of the day. For me, knowing I made someone happy is the best feeling in the world.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Where do you see your business going in the future?
Cliff Suttle: When PRS released the first Dragon guitar in the 90′s, they make it popular and cool to have wild inlays on your guitar. Since then the popularity and collectability of such guitars has grown and grown. If you go to the NAMM show many manufacturers have stunningly inlaid guitars as the center piece of their booths. Martin, Taylor, PRS, Gibson, Fender, all the big names and a lot of the smaller builders too. I think people are really starting to appreciate the amount of time and craftsmanship that goes into such work. I see it only getting more and more popular.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What are some of your favorite inlays you have done?
Cliff Suttle: Well that is a tough question. #1 is easy the Rock ‘n’ Roll Angel. One day I will have to make a guitar like this for me. After that it starts getting crowded fast. I really like the Grateful Dead tribute medallion, and my current project The Viking. I still have a soft spot in my heart though for the Dragon Wizard too. And with all the cool t-covers I’ve made, I would have to say that my favorite t-cover has to be the Tiger Head.
Rock 'N' Roll Angel Guitar Inlay
Grateful Dead Tribute Medallion Inlay
Tiger Head Truss Rod Cover Inlay
I want to thank Cliff Suttle from Shark Inlay for taking the time to answer the questions in this interview. Please visit the Shark Inlay website at:
Shark Inlay
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