wood inlay

[brent mcmillen]

I use corel draw graphics suite 12. Does anyone know how to cut let's say a bird from a light piece of 1/8" wood, and then cut an identical bird from a dark piece of wood and insert the dark bird in the light background without a gap between the bird and the background?

[Christopher Kanda]

maybe someone can post a short article on how to accomplish this task

[Darren Null]

Use the same cutline for both. The laser vapourises a little bit either side of the cutline, thus giving you a little wriggle room for fitting. Insert A into B. Glue.

You did say short.

[Steve Clarkson]

Brent,

Probably the easiest way is on the tool bar where you have the H&W of the bird.....change the PERCENTAGE to 101% or 102%......it will make the second bird slightly bigger.

[Scott Shepherd]

In the ones I have done, I rastered out the image into the wood, then took the same image, drew a black box around it, inverted it, so the image was white, then mirrored it and burned that until there was nothing but a thin web holding it together. Glue very well, clamp or vacuum until dry, then sand off the web, flush to the top of the main piece. No gaps.

[Mark Winlund]

I use an outline of about 3 to 4 thousandths. Since the kerf width is about this, it works very well. To be precise, one can do 2 thousandths on the outer piece, and 2 thousandths on the inner piece, but the difference is not noticeable. If you do not compensate in some way, then you will have a gap.

Using percentages can give you problems, and can be difficult to calculate. An offset (corel calls it a contour) is easier to keep track of. Don't forget that the number of internal parts can complicate things. If you use percentages, all of the parts in your pattern will be enlarged. Then you have to enlarge the parts that fit inside the first part, and so on. It can drive you nuts to keep track of it all. Easier to use the contour.

Also, I put the various parts on different layers or pages. You can then turn them off when you are not working on them. You will find it easiest to make each layer a specific species of hard wood. Put notes on each layer or page in a non operative color. This helps you remember what you did to that particular part of the inlay.

Remember to charge more for this. Each type of wood in the inlay uses up a lot of veneer, not to mention the time it takes to do this. One award in three colors is really three awards worth of time. Your customer will resist the additional charge. (I can hear it now.... "you just push a button and it comes out of the machine, right?)

I use adhesive backed veneers almost exclusively. They are much more expensive, but are much quicker to apply.

Start with a simple project first.... a name in maple on a background of walnut. The letters will have some internal holes and such which will get you started on the finer points of doing this type of work.

Mark

[Mike Mackenzie]

A trick to use is to remember what your spot size of the lens is. ie 2.0" is a 0.005 spot size.

What we do is to contour to the outside of the VECTOR part by 0.002. The beam travels on a centerline so 0.0025 is getting removed from the inside of the VECTOR and the outside of the vector line.

You still raster the pocket at the normal size and then do the contour to the outside of the vector, we then mirror image it and cut it from the bad side of the material you then flip it back over and the angle of the kerf fits very nicely into the pocket it works very well.

One other thing to keep in mind here the thicker the wood the larger the kerf and the more power you need to cut it, you basically just want to cut through the inlay material with as little of power as necessary. If you use too much power you will have more material reaction and then loose more in the cut.

[AL Ursich]

In the ones I have done, I rastered out the image into the wood, then took the same image, drew a black box around it, inverted it, so the image was white, then mirrored it and burned that until there was nothing but a thin web holding it together. Glue very well, clamp or vacuum until dry, then sand off the web, flush to the top of the main piece. No gaps.

I like that idea....

AL

[Lee DeRaud]

I use corel draw graphics suite 12. Does anyone know how to cut let's say a bird from a light piece of 1/8" wood, and then cut an identical bird from a dark piece of wood and insert the dark bird in the light background without a gap between the bird and the background?What the others said.

But actually the contrast between the dark and light woods tends to conceal the kerf anyway...it's when you have two relatively light woods in play that the trickier techniques are required.

[Mike Null]

I cut one from the back side which has the effect or reducing the kerf considerably and raster the other.

[brent mcmillen]

Thanks for all the replies, great information

[John Barton]

The way I do it is to find out what the lowest power/speed settings are that will cut the materials.

On my laser when I cut a piece at say 10x10cm then I get exactly that size on the cut out piece.

The inlay itself is called the male part and the pocket where the inlay goes is the female part.

When you cut the pocket you will need to adjust for the excess burn or width of the beam. Unlike a router bit this varies depending on the power and speed and material because different materials burn at different rates. At least this is my experience so far.

So, when you find out what the offset should be then just cut your pocket accordingly.

The other thing I try to do is cut one side opposite to the other one because of the kerf. Kerf is the name for the angled edge of the cut due to there being one tiny point where the laser beam's heat is fully concentrated and above and below this point the beam looks like an hourglass. Typically this should be the focus point so the actual cut below the surface has an angle. So I have found the best fit to be when the angles are the same which is what happens when you cut the pocket face side up and the inlay face side down.

At a Universal laser booth I saw the following method as a way to do inlays and I think it's the same as the method described above. The example was a intricate bird on a branch, hundreds of "inlays".

For the purpose of this explanation we will use mahogony for the dark wood and maple for the light wood.

What you do is make a positive and negative version of the image and use the positive on one side and the negative on the other. Engrave away the black on each one. Then put the two pieces together like a sandwich. Sand off the top of one of the pieces and you are left with an intricate "inlaid" piece.

I haven't tried this yet but the result I saw at the Universal booth was really impressive.

[Scott Shepherd]

John,that's the same technique I mentioned above. I wouldn't think of doing a complex inlay any other way. I can do a 100 piece inlay in one whack, where as vector cutting them, you have 100 individual pieces to account for, handle, and glue. This way, one whack, one gluing, complex shapes complete.

[Lee DeRaud]

At a Universal laser booth I saw the following method as a way to do inlays and I think it's the same as the method described above. The example was a intricate bird on a branch, hundreds of "inlays".

For the purpose of this explanation we will use mahogony for the dark wood and maple for the light wood.

What you do is make a positive and negative version of the image and use the positive on one side and the negative on the other. Engrave away the black on each one. Then put the two pieces together like a sandwich. Sand off the top of one of the pieces and you are left with an intricate "inlaid" piece.

I haven't tried this yet but the result I saw at the Universal booth was really impressive.I've tried it, and it really works with respect to fit and ease-of-assembly. But:

1. it doesn't scale to multiple "colors" and
2. all the inlay grain runs the same direction.

There are a lot of nice "inlay-ish" things you can do with only two species of wood, but a lot of them just don't look right if all the inlay is oriented the same way. (The most obvious example here is leaves coming out of a branch in multiple directions.)