String inlay tools?

[Frederick Skelly]

I saw an article in FWW a while back and tried to make my own according to their article. (Thats half the fun, right?) I failed. Maybe the scraper was too thin or whatever but I couldnt get the split tongue they were telling me to cut with the file. Now Im wondering if it makes more sense to buy the tools instead. But thats a two edged sword. First, I hate to spend several hundred on something Im just starting to try out. What if I dont like doing it and therefore dont use the tool? (Lie Neilson and the like are professional grade items and priced in the $200-$300 range.) On the other hand, a poorly done home made tool can make the job so hard that you never like doing it either. (You almost cant go wrong with LN tools.)

Any thoughts, advice, experience or more affordable sources will help me think it through and would sure be appreciated.

[Chris Griggs]

LV makes some handheld template tools (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=69875&cat=1,250,43298,43314,69873) that are pretty much the same as the ones in that article. In fact, a little bird told me that they worked with Michael Fortune to develop them. Anyway, I have a couple (the groove cutter and chisel thingy) that I've been playing with to get a taste for inlay.... they are cheap and work quite nicely. You can use them up against a straight edge or along just about any shape template.

[Frederick Skelly]

Thanks Chris. They do look a lot like the article and it helps to compare notes with someone who is actually using them successfully.

Did they come with any instructions on how to sharpen them?

[Chris Griggs]

Yes. These are the instructions (http://www.leevalley.com/US/shopping/Instructions.aspx?p=69945). Actually if you go to the page and click on the inst link next to the item that's where they are - most their tools have a similar link, which I often find helpful it to read when making a purchase decision since, in addition to having instructions it typically gives a more detailed description of the tool.

I haven't done anything with a needle file on groove cutter yet. What I did do when I first got them, which I don't think is in the instructions is lap/polish the sides of the blades. They worked well enough out of the box,but doing this did help to get a cleaner cut. Just don't go overboard with the lapping as your don't want to thin out the blade too much - I brought it up to polish and then stopped.

For the little chisel thingy, in addition to lapping the sides I honed it like I would any other flat ground chisel - honed and polished the back of the bevel and it was good to go. These things are so small that they don't need to have a smoothing plane or paring chisel edge. They just need to be sharp enough to sever the fibers (though I still got them as sharp as I could).

The groove cutter is the primary tool you'll use. You sorta just push it and pull it. The pushing severs and the pulling cleans. It works well, but the pushing is a little harder for me than the pulling. I suggested to LV that they also make a tool that does the opposite - sever on pull and clean on push. I really prefer the feel of pulling it so that way I could just use one for the severing and one for the cleaning in both cases using the pull motion. A second one that does the opposite would give folks the chance to push for both operations, pull for both operations, or push and pull for whichever they choose.

[Shawn Pixley]

I made the tool described in FWW. Cutting the Vee notch was the most difficult part. I needed my magnifying visor.

261564

You can see a bit of some string work in progress there. Don't understand why the photos get reversed sometimes. The harder thing for me was getting the stringing to the right thickness without tearing it up. That Lie Nielsen stringing scraper looks very appealing but it shouldn't be hard to make.

[Chris Griggs]

The harder thing for me was getting the stringing to the right thickness without tearing it up. That Lie Nielsen stringing scraper looks very appealing but it shouldn't be hard to make.

Nice work on the stringing tool Shawn.

+1 one. Thicknessing the string is hard if you don't have a proper tool, which I don't . Both LN and LV make one - the LV is more of a raised up scraper plane thing where as the LN is that block with scrapers you pull the string though. Never tried either, but I'd like to try making one like LN - doesn't seem like it would be too hard.

Also, for anyone interested in inlay BUY OR BORROW THE STEVE LATTA VIDEO Fundamentals of Inlay: Stringing, Line & Berry. Fantastic video, that will save you a lot of trouble.

I haven't done a project with stringing yet (so please take everything I say about it with less than a grain of salt), but I've been messing around with scraps for a while and I have an unfinished box sitting in my shop waiting to be inlayed. Rest assured I will be rewaching that video at least once before I put the groove cutter to the unfinished box. It one of those videos you watch and that has lots of great tips that when you see you think "That's so brilliant and obvious, yet I would have never thought it on my own (or until I learned the hard way)"

[Tony Shea]

I made my own version of Lie Nielsen's stringing thicknesser. It is a very easy tool to make acurately if you have spare scraper saw blades kicking around. And it works great. The idea is to make a bit of a tapered piece of stringing.

Check out this video, and site for that matter. There is some pretty good videos here.
http://woodtreks.com/making-and-applying-decorative-string-inlay-woodworking/477/

[Frederick Skelly]

Great video. Thanks for sharing it!

[Dean Coss]

As an alternative, here is a link to a good article from Woodcraft that uses a Dremel tool to cut grooves for stringing:
https://www.woodcraft.com/blog_entries/string-and-fan-inlay-made-simple#

[Frederick Skelly]

As an alternative, here is a link to a good article from Woodcraft that uses a Dremel tool to cut grooves for stringing:
https://www.woodcraft.com/blog_entries/string-and-fan-inlay-made-simple#

Thanks Dean. It is an interesting alternative. I've saved the article.

As a follow-up (5 years later - sorry folks), I ended up buying the LN set of tools and have never regretted it. They are nice tools.

Fred