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Karin Voorhis
01-08-2007, 2:35 PM
Ok I have played with my laser adn produce some ok stuff nothing like you all but ok cool stuff.
I just made my first wood working project of a cutting board which turned out so great I loved it and I made a 2nd one.

I know would like to try to do some small practice with simple inlays but I am not sure how to set up the file in Corel.

I am guessing that you first would raster deepenough and a bit larger (this is where I am lost) Then you cut your pattern in the veneer adn glue adn press it in.

am I going in the right dirction here???

Brent Vander Weil
01-08-2007, 2:42 PM
Me too Karin...

I would be interested in schooling on this process too :-)

Bob Yeager
01-08-2007, 3:47 PM
I know our member Pete Simmons does inlay work with his laser. I know he posted not too long ago some info about doing this on some pen boxes. You can see some of his work on his website.

Bob

Vicky Orsini
01-08-2007, 3:55 PM
I am guessing that you first would raster deepenough and a bit larger (this is where I am lost) Then you cut your pattern in the veneer adn glue adn press it in. I am probably wrong :p, but I don't think you need to raster a bit larger. I would think you'd have to compensate the other way - vector your inlay slightly larger to compensate for the laser line so you don't have too large of a gap. :confused: I, too, would love to try my hand at this at some point. Clearly, I also need some guidance. :D

Ed Maloney
01-08-2007, 3:56 PM
Here's one of the threads that discusses this topic...

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=401885

Robin Lake
01-08-2007, 4:58 PM
I know would like to ... try ... inlays

Karen --

I have been working hard at doing inlays. Started with some pretty poor pieces of work. I have now done some pretty good pieces.

This is where I currently am. I have a ULS V-460 45w. The machine shouldn't matter. The driver from brand to brand might.

1) generate your file. Text or graphic. Maybe something like "Karen" in your favorite font. Must be vector.

2) set the file to fill only, no outline

3) raster out the area to be inlaid to a suitable depth (perhaps something under .100")

4) select one piece of your file ie the "K" in Karen. Eliminate the fill and set the outline to hairline.

5) do a contour .002" to the outside of this hairline (you may need a little larger if your beam width is a little greater, or if you are cutting a really small piece)

6) break the contour apart and select the outside line. The contour line will be very close to the original, so select carefully. Different colors might help keep it straight. That helps me.

7) mirror the contour line which is now separated from the original line (the sides of the kerf are not perfectly straight. It will fit better if mirrored.)

8) vector cut the item, in this case the "K", from contrasting wood of about 1/8" or so thickness. This will be proud of the cavity so you will be able to sand it down to perfection.

9) check for fit. it should be snug.

10) put a little yellow glue in the cavity

11) place the inlay item on the "sweet spot". Wiggle it around a little to convince yourself it will go home in the next step.

12) put a block over it so that the whole "K" is covered, and rap with a mallet (or 8" long piece of 2x4)

13) run and show your wife (in your case your husband) what an amazing thing just happened :-) Take all the attaboys ... ah, er, attagirls you can get

I have a shop full of things like table saws, planers, sanders, band saws, magnifiers that help me get the inlay wood down to a good thickness and then sand everything smooth then frame up the final project. Not all have these machines handy. If you want do much of this, some of these machines will be a necessity. Frankly, this is the kind of thing that will set your work apart.

If anything isn't clear in what I have written, lemme know and I will try to clarify.

Once you do a couple of these out of scrap wood you will want to go to your local Woodcraft or it's equivalent and buy some pieces of colored wood with which to make your first masterpiece.

I should also say that there are many other methods that I have seen described. I am sure they work. This works for me. Hope it will for you, too.

Good luck.

Robin

Lee DeRaud
01-08-2007, 5:21 PM
First off, you need to decide whether to talk about "veneer" or talk about "inlay", because normal veneer doesn't lend itself all that well to laser inlay. For one thing, it's tough to get the cavity bottom smooth/flat enough for the veneer, and the thickness of the veneer doesn't give you any slack for smoothing afterwards. Not to mention that thin veneers are a really bad idea when you're talking about something like a cutting board.

So, if you want to do an inlay, think in terms of inlay material in the 3/32"-1/8" thickness range. If you want to play with veneer, do the whole surface in veneer over a flat substrate.

For inlay, you can raster the cavity, but it takes forever and generates a lot of smoke/soot that can get on your background. To get around that problem, you can apply transfer tape and vector-cut a mask before vectoring, but sometimes that burns at the edges anyway. If your design/material allows it, sealing the background wood with shellac and/or wax beforehand helps too.

Another option is to vector-cut the cavity, using interior contours spaced 0.01" or so, then cleaning it up with a small chisel or a Dremel tool in a router base: faster and cleaner, but more handwork.

Either way, you want the cavity slightly shallower than the thickness of the inlay material, so the inlay will stick up above the surface slightly.

The inlay chunk(s) are cut with a 0.005" or so outside contour, to compensate for the "kerf". After gluing, a random-orbit sander or a card scraper is used to even everything up, same as with hand-cut inlay.

For veneer, your "cavity" is just a hole vector-cut into a large piece of veneer, presumably the same thickness as the "inlay" veneer. Then the inlay pieces are cut, assembled to the background veneer with tape on the face side, and then the whole thing is glued to a flat substrate as if it were a single piece of veneer.

Note that since very low power is used when cutting veneer, the amount of kerf compensation will be less than for 1/8" material.

Bottom line here is, you're not doing anything that can't be done without the laser, so any of the standard veneer/marquetry books will have a lot of useful information in them.

Lee DeRaud
01-08-2007, 5:29 PM
I have a shop full of things like table saws, planers, sanders, band saws, magnifiers that help me get the inlay wood down to a good thickness and then sand everything smooth then frame up the final project. Not all have these machines handy. If you want do much of this, some of these machines will be a necessity.Note also that there are a lot of people out there on the net (including here: PM George Perzel) selling thin wood in dozens of species, mostly for the scrollsaw crowd. This lets you do a bunch of experimenting before you really need to buy tools to make inlay wood.

Mitchell Andrus
01-08-2007, 6:18 PM
A process that works for me and a bit simpler than Robin's:

I make text (objects, whatever) WITH the outline. Make the outline thin and red for vector cutting, then change the outline to black for rastering. The same file may be used, in your laser driver, just remember to turn off raster when vector cutting and turn off vector for rastering.

If the fit is too snug, make the black outline thicker to raster a slightly bigger opening for the piece being fitted. As a matter of habbit, I bump up the outline one size so as the veneer swells, it doesn't wrinkle. Also, if you tint (dye) the glue, you can get an amazing outline effect.

See below:

Mitch

Mark Winlund
01-08-2007, 6:21 PM
Karen...

What Lee said was dead on.... the principal problem with a cutting board is going to be durability. As he mentioned, trying to get a flat bottom is difficult. You have to have a good "bed" for the inlay to stay there. I have gotten by with it by using epoxy glue to fill up the uneven spots, thick veneer (up to 1/4" thick) and running the whole works through a thickness sander.

If the cutting board is for decorative purposes only, a background veneer of the same species as the cutting board makes the whole job simple. Just inlay the veneers, and apply the "package" to the cutting board.

One third method might be to find a water jet cutter, and let them cut all of the parts out of solid wood. The advantage would be that the design would go clear through the board. I have never tried it, though.

Mark

George M. Perzel
01-08-2007, 9:48 PM
Hi Karen;
I can't add much to what the other guys said. It's much easier inlaying using wood which is thicker than veneer. As Lee noted, you don't have much error margin when inlaying veneer since most of it nowdays is 1/42" thick. That's why I cut my own or buy thin stock. If you are really going to get into it then a small bandsaw(first) and a drum sander (2nd) will help a lot.
To be honest, I really don't bother with trying to get a perfect fit (contours, mirrorring) as the same text which I raster for the cavity works for the inlay-change the outline to hairline and unfill.
I'm not that far from you. If you are ever going to be in the Rochester area give me a call and I'll give you a few quick lessons and tips- and some thin wood to get started.
Best regards;
George
LaserArts

Karin Voorhis
01-09-2007, 2:35 PM
Thank you so very much for the insight.... I am still abit confussed but I think that can be solved by just playing with the info.

Thank you all I hope to be playing soon with this method

Abdul Baseer Hai
01-10-2007, 11:38 AM
After reading all the posts on this subject, I have a small question.
If you are doing inlay work on a finished rosewood pen box, how do you sand the inlay to a smooth level finish without damaging the finish on the box?

Abdul

Lee DeRaud
01-10-2007, 11:54 AM
After reading all the posts on this subject, I have a small question.
If you are doing inlay work on a finished rosewood pen box, how do you sand the inlay to a smooth level finish without damaging the finish on the box?(obligatory smart-aleck answer) I don't. :p

Seriously, if someone wants inlay on an object (as opposed to engraving), I'm either going to do the inlay while it's still unfinished or refinish it afterward. Just the nature of the process.

(Somebody may have a way to do this...but I seriously doubt it. If so, I'd be real interested to hear about it.)

Mitchell Andrus
01-10-2007, 12:27 PM
Lee's got it... I finish the piece after the inlay is in place (else, how would you level the different thickness of materials?).