Genuine Tortise Shell

hey folks, i was doing a bit of drawer dejunking this morning and ran across this. I found it, and several others, years ago on the remains of a long dead gopher tortise. It had been dead long enough the plates had started seperating from the bone underneath so i gathered up the plates that had fallen off. At the time i was trying to figure out how to delaminate oyster shells to harvest the inner layer of mother of pearl to use on some fancy fly reel seats i was making. I thought if i could soften it up enough to seperate it i might also be able to bend it to use for inlay on some really fine flamed walnut i had, and i thought i might find some clues in the laminations of the turtle shell plates. LSS i never found any way to harvest the MOP and the entire shell expriment went into a storage drawer and was basically forgotten until i ran across this in a junk drawer this morning. At some point the box of assorted shells and my notes disappeared but this single piece of tortise wound up in the bottom of the drawer. While this one is as it was found, i buffed one up when i first brought them home and the colors were incredible. I never did anything else with any of those pieces and never thought to discover how turtle shell went from bony plate covering to guitar guard back in the day. Anywho, here is a piece of raw tort.

And anyone who can educate me on the process of shell to guard, i'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance for any and all help on this.

 

I figure i'll just leave it as is and give it wifey to display in her collection of rocks bones and other assorted stuff.