Inlay mini tutorial

[Wayne Bitting]

This probably isn’t the best way to do things, it’s just the way I did them….

First couple of pics are of the box elder blank mounted on the Shop Smith. It is starting out at about 15.25” by 1.5” thick. The ShopSmith has a 16” swing, but as everyone is aware its not really designed to spin something that size because its so light and its lowest speed is 750 RPM. I ended up leaning on the motor while I was truing the blank to keep it from walking out the door and into the street!


71905

The next couple of pics are the finished platter. I tried out oil sanding for the first time. Finished size was about 14.75” by 1.25”.


71906
71907

Next it was time to lay out the inlay. The logo is my company’s and this was going to go in the main entrance being the first thing you would see when you opened the door. I printed the logo on Avery #8665, which is a clear ink jet printable label sheet. I peeled a small area so I could align it with my center point, then peeled the rest.


71908

After carving, just used a standard hobby knife as well as its chisel blade.


71909



next post...

[Wayne Bitting]

The inlay material is embossing power for all of the colors and glitter for the silver. It was glued in using thin CA and then I pressed it in using waxed paper so the CA didn’t stick to my fingers (the CA wanted to float all of the power out if I used too much). The nice thing about the Avery paper was that I could peel off most of the over glue and the blank stayed fairly clean.

71910

Lastly, most of the excess inlay removed…sorta…



71911

Things feel apart quickly. The blank warped when I started to spin it again. As I turned it, one side was perfect but the other side didn’t get all of the excess material removed, by a long shot. By the time I re-spun it, I was well over an 1/8” deep on side so I had to redo the inside profile. By that time I needed to patch parts of the inlay. I craved them out and reapplied. It looked horrible. You can see the squares I cut and refilled. After turning it was very apparent that you can’t patch, at least the sliver. After spending 30 hours on this project, I removed all of the inlay, wrapped it in newspaper and it is in the basement waiting for it to stop moving. Then I have to start over from scratch. I was pretty upset as we were having big time customers coming in and I wanted it to be there before they got here.

[TYLER WOOD]

Personally, I think I would have trimmed all of the excess sticker away and left it at that. Although the inly would be nice, unless you lasered it in and just sanded it out off the lathe, I don't think you would have much luck. Rechucking and remounting is one of the easiest ways I screw pieces up. I would have looked good though. Sorry for your loss!!!

[Wayne Bitting]

Tyler - I've screwed up lots rechucking too, so now I only use a scrap block and a faceplate so that I can stick it back on the lathe without loosing true. I laid the blank on the table and you can see warped. Wood's not as dry as I thought it was. I've done smaller inlay pieces the same way without any problems (I know no pics it didn't happen, wife grabs them too quick!)

[Paul Engle]

It looks great even still, I ran into a problem with cherry 8/4 that was at < 6% moisture,I turned to a 14 in platter x 3/8in, two days after it was finished w/ poly wipe on it warped nearly 1/4 inch. and the stock had been sitting in my wood shed since 1996 with my other flat work demension wood. go figure , yours looks great dont give up tho. Now I know the grain etc could cause it to warp etc , but it is very dissapointing to have this happen when it is " special " and we really do not want to hear it may have been caused by something we did not take into account, well just so you know there are way too many variables in turning sometimes, an i am not one to remember to take somethings into account before I do somethings sometimes . :D