INlace and rosewood question.

[Paul Williams]

I am trying to place inlace in a 1/16" groove in a east indian rosewood ring. Three attempts so far. The stuff either doesn't set up correctly or it sets up but does not attach to the wood. I assume the oil in the wood is interfering with the inlace. I tried coating the groove with shellac. It helped a little but still not enough to turn. Any ideas on how to accomplish this?

[David Reed]

Not sure if this will help or not but when I have glued up very oily Teak, I wash the surfaces with lacquer thinner or acetone immediately before applying the glue and have not had any trouble with glue joint failures. It may work here as well, but for the difficulty in thoroughly washing a narrow crack.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Ditto what David said. I use acetone to clean the oily wood before glueing.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Slightly dovetail the groove.

[Paul Williams]

Thanks guys. I figured removing the oil would be my next attempt. I tryed to dove tail the slot a little on the last attempt but that is pretty hard to do on a 1/16 inch grouve in a 3/4 inch diameter ring. The inlace stayed in the groove better, but it was not attached to the wood and would rotate. The inlace came apart when I tryed to turn it down. If this doesn't work I figured I would pour a thin sheet of inlace. After it hardens I would sand the surfaces and then glue up a sandwich with the rosewood. I owuld have given up on this project by now except I hate to do that and it is for a friend who saw something similar and I volunteered to make him one.