Challenging Project

[John TenEyck]

I made what I thought would be a simple cutting board for my niece's wedding this weekend. Turns out, there were are few challenges.

The cutting board itself is a simple vertical grain board. The walnut I had available, though, had what turned out to be pretty ugly sapwood that really detracted from what I wanted to be a uniform background. No kidding. So the only solution I could think of was to dye the board, which I did and turned out OK. But that prevented me from being about to glue in the inlay I intended to use and then surface everything at once. OK, plan B, install the finished inlay in the finished board.

The inlay turned out to be the real challenge. Try as I might, the male letters and numbers chipped out no matter what I did. I tried ebony and bloodwood, with several different machining strategies, to no avail.



In contrast, the Celtic marriage knot machined just fine. Go figure. So I ended up pouring epoxy in the female recesses for the letters. I like how the color is a little darker than the bloodwood, but I had several bubbles that were a pain to refill, more than once. I never did successfully get rid of all of them. I have no experience with pouring epoxy, something I'll have to work it. But I was smart enought to seal the background wood so the epoxy wouldn't stain it.



Here you can see the pores from the bubbles:




Here's the finished board, sitting on a display stand I made for it.









John

[Michael Burnside]

Looks great John. Personally I think the inlayed letters would have eventually been a problem with even the slightest amount of moisture, so in the end I think the final project is better the way it turned out.

[John TenEyck]

Looks great John. Personally I think the inlayed letters would have eventually been a problem with even the slightest amount of moisture, so in the end I think the final project is better the way it turned out.

Thanks. I always thought people said epoxy is prone to popping out after a few years. But I suspect this will be one of those cutting boards that never gets used. Who's going to slop stuff on something commemorating their wedding? Only divorced people do that. So moisture probably won't be much of an issue. If it is, then the inlay itself might not fair well since it's quarter sawn beech in the end grain walnut. More correctly, it should be end grain as well.

John

[Michael Burnside]

I think the knot will be fine. I'd worry about the curning or the small comma having a problem from constriction/expansion.

One question on the epoxy. Did you use a small hand torch to braise over the epoxy for bubble mitigation? That's generally pretty important for the first few minutes while the epoxy is curing.

[John TenEyck]

No, I didn't know about using a torch on the fresh poured epoxy. I do now.

John

[George Yetka]

No, I didn't know about using a torch on the fresh poured epoxy. I do now.

John

A heat gun can do it too but torch is best. Another thing you can do is use an acid brush to paint on clear epoxy. Then when it dries scuff it up, blow it off, and then pour. This will prevent bubbles coming out. This is something I would do on a deeper pour.

If your pour were a little deeper you can use a drill bit just larger and drill out the bubble and pour ca glue in. Its a quick easy fix. but you may be a little shallow to do that as you would lose the red color.

Still Looks great. it is funny how nobody uses the boards you make them. I have 3 friends who use them daily for years and they look perfect. Then there are a bunch standing up in peoples never touched. I always tell them I prefer they use them I can always sand them for them later.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks for the advice, George. Now that you mentioned it, I have a customer I sell CNC stuff to that does epoxy inlays, and he mentioned precoating with clear epoxy. But I think you're right, these might have been a little too shallow for that. Anyway, it's done and I'm hopefully a little wiser for the next time.

John

[Jim Becker]

When you need to pre-coat to avoid bleed, if you choose to use resin, use a small amount of the 'thick set" type which is very thin and will penetrate. With such a thin coating, it will cure overnight no problem. You can also use wax free shellac, but I've found that less effective, depending on the type of dye/pigments being used. You can do this even when the recesses are shallow. For the friend I cut inlay recesses for charcuterie boards and other decorative items, the depth is rarely more than 2mm for straight sided recesses but can be even less for v-carved material. (some things require it for sharp corners)

That said, for these solid inlays, unless you're going to glue them in using resin, you'll not want to seal with resin... wink, wink, nod, nod...wood glue is what it is.

[Alex Zeller]

If you want to try a challenge you can try using veneer. Instead of doing a 'V' shaped pocket and corresponding letters you make normal pocket. I glue the veneer to scrap piece of wood, cut the inlay design to the proper depth, and then use my bandsaw (like resawing) to cut the veneer from the scrap wood. Double sided tape would also work. I use a .030 bit to the last pass. I use epoxy in the pocket and then put the veneer on top of the epoxy. I use plastic wrap on top and then another board on top to press it all together. Once the epoxy is set I send it through the drum sander to remove any epoxy on top.

I don't have issues with the wood chipping. I've been using colored maple veneers from a company that makes supplies for skateboard decks. I can't find a picture of it but I made a nice football shaped serving tray with the patriots name and logo inlayed into it. It took multiple cuts on the logo, one for each color. Any tiny gaps between the inlay and surrounding wood is filled in with epoxy and is invisible. I make the pockets slightly deeper than the thickness of the veneer so when I sand I take very little off of the veneer. I find there's a lot less waste.

Here's the experiment with scrap wood I did to get the process down. I also wanted to see how many passes I could make with the drum sander before I actually sanded through the veneer.
pats 1.jpg

[John TenEyck]

Thanks Alex. I did contemplate using conventionally cut inlays for the lettering but didn't pursue it. I'll keep it mind for the next challenging inlay project.

John