Lawrence Richards
08-23-2011, 1:43 AM
Well, my pop woodworking came in a couple of days ago and as usual, it was filled with all kinds of sawdusty goodness. One of the articles was how to use a router to make banded inlay. Well, I figured this would be a pretty neat thing, but instead of using a router I would use my Carvewright to do the V cuts. It would also be simple to just make a jig and use a router. I would put this in the CNC section, but honestly the techniques used here are valid for any method.
I started out by creating 2 pieces of wood (in this case a piece of ebony and a piece of holly) that were the same thickness. Since I recently sold my drum sander, I improvised and used a hand plane in a track as a thicknesser. (the power planer would have chewed these pieces up and spit them out... possibly at me)
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409401024x768.jpg
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409421024x768.jpg
I then double stick taped the pieces to a sled and put them in my CNC
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409451024x768.jpg
I probably got a little aggressive with my cuts as a piece of holly did chip out at the end. Next time I'll be more conservative and back the wood up on both sides. Anyway, a 90 degree bit got me this
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409491024x768.jpg
fyi, the brown in the holly is mostly dust from the ebony... there was a little burning, but not much and it didn't show in the end result. Again, next time I'll take 3 passes instead of 2
so then I glued the pieces together
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409541024x768.jpg
I then planed the holly down until the ebony just started to show through
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409581024x768.jpg
and then ripped the sandwich in half. Once you do this you put the book together however you'd like the pattern to be-- one option is this
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409591024x768-1.jpg
but I decided on this
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409601024x768-1.jpg
You then glue this together
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409641024x768.jpg
Then I added a very thin piece of holly onto the ebony and clean up the edges
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409651024x768.jpg
Then I used a very thin 7 1/4 sawblade in my tablesaw and used my thin jig and a featherboard to make the inlay bandings
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409671024x768.jpg
They turned out OK, though next time I'll be a little more careful to get the last thin sandwich a little cleaner and will make sure to get a better glue line between the middle diamond. One mistake I made was that I used TBIII on the holly to holly glueline, I should have used a clear glue as TBIII dries brownish and the line shows.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409691024x768.jpg
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409721024x768.jpg
Other things I will do next time--
- I'll go smaller-- the inlay is a little big for most objects and it could be "daintier"
- I'll use local woods/other offcuts of exotics. I know it was a bit daring using ebony for this project, but I wanted to give it the best chance of success the first time so I wanted to use very dense and tightgrained woods such as ebony... there are reasons it is so expensive (the 1.75 x 10 x .5 piece was about $7 worth of ebony) and one of them is that it is a lovely wood to work with. I also plan to use this banding in a small frame I'm making in the future.
Thanks for looking-
Lawrence
I started out by creating 2 pieces of wood (in this case a piece of ebony and a piece of holly) that were the same thickness. Since I recently sold my drum sander, I improvised and used a hand plane in a track as a thicknesser. (the power planer would have chewed these pieces up and spit them out... possibly at me)
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409401024x768.jpg
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409421024x768.jpg
I then double stick taped the pieces to a sled and put them in my CNC
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409451024x768.jpg
I probably got a little aggressive with my cuts as a piece of holly did chip out at the end. Next time I'll be more conservative and back the wood up on both sides. Anyway, a 90 degree bit got me this
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409491024x768.jpg
fyi, the brown in the holly is mostly dust from the ebony... there was a little burning, but not much and it didn't show in the end result. Again, next time I'll take 3 passes instead of 2
so then I glued the pieces together
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409541024x768.jpg
I then planed the holly down until the ebony just started to show through
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409581024x768.jpg
and then ripped the sandwich in half. Once you do this you put the book together however you'd like the pattern to be-- one option is this
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409591024x768-1.jpg
but I decided on this
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409601024x768-1.jpg
You then glue this together
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409641024x768.jpg
Then I added a very thin piece of holly onto the ebony and clean up the edges
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409651024x768.jpg
Then I used a very thin 7 1/4 sawblade in my tablesaw and used my thin jig and a featherboard to make the inlay bandings
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409671024x768.jpg
They turned out OK, though next time I'll be a little more careful to get the last thin sandwich a little cleaner and will make sure to get a better glue line between the middle diamond. One mistake I made was that I used TBIII on the holly to holly glueline, I should have used a clear glue as TBIII dries brownish and the line shows.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409691024x768.jpg
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Carvewright/banded%20inlay/P10409721024x768.jpg
Other things I will do next time--
- I'll go smaller-- the inlay is a little big for most objects and it could be "daintier"
- I'll use local woods/other offcuts of exotics. I know it was a bit daring using ebony for this project, but I wanted to give it the best chance of success the first time so I wanted to use very dense and tightgrained woods such as ebony... there are reasons it is so expensive (the 1.75 x 10 x .5 piece was about $7 worth of ebony) and one of them is that it is a lovely wood to work with. I also plan to use this banding in a small frame I'm making in the future.
Thanks for looking-
Lawrence