Inlay with difficult pieces

[John Coloccia]

My logo is a bit difficult to inlay just because of how thin it is. My smallest mill just barely fits to cut the cavity (1/32")...and that doesn't really fit for much of it. Beyond that, it's difficult just to hold the pieces in place to mark them, so this is my process on difficult inlays like this.

First, here is the victim...



and here are the individual pieces that I cut out....this happens to be mother of pearl.



The first thing I do is put some double sided tape where the logo goes. I need to cut out around the tuner holes. This is facilitated by shining a flashlight from the back so I can actually see the hole.



Next I just lay the tuner nut and washer on the headstock so I can see where everything fits. You'll see why in a second...the logo just barely fits so I want to be sure to get it aligned properly and that it's aesthetically pleasing.



Here it is all aligned and happy.



Now I go over it with a sharp x-acto blade and carefully cut away the double sided tape. I think I used three blades for this. I like working with sharp blades as a slightly dull blade will tug on the tape and make a mess.



Now I mask it off so I don't make a mess.



Then I spray it with some rustoleom white primer. Anything would work, I guess, but this is what I happen to use.



So now this is what I have when I remove the tape...



Now I get some more fresh blades and scribe around the inlay again. There is a lot of over spray and general messiness when you first spray the primer, so scribing makes it that much more precise. I often use the x-acto blade upside down...I find it leaves a better line like that sometimes. Then I carefully....VERY carefully grab the inlay pieces with tweezers, and gently wiggle them back and forth. It will eventually come free. When I'm done with all that, it looks something like this:



The rest is pretty straightforward, but for the uninitiated that happen to be reading this thread, now I grab my trusty dremel with the StewMac base...



...and have at it. As you're fitting it, be sure to remember to scrape the primer off the individual inlay pieces! The back and front don't matter, but the sides certainly do. When I'm done, it looks a little like this:



Normally, you strive to not make all the little bobbles that you see here, but again I'm a little limited by my cutter. If it where really important to be perfect, I would do this particular inlay by hand. In this case, a slight bit of sloppiness is okay, and you'll see why in a second.

Then I glue it in with black epoxy. The fiberboard veneer it's inlayed into will be pitch black once I shoot it with lacquer.



When it's all sanded flush, you'll never see the tiny mistakes.



For larger inlays, I usually just hold it down and scribe so it's a far simpler process. I could probably hold these down too, their alignment to each other is critical so it's far easier for me to get the alignment done on the double sided tape where I can see everything all at one.

One thing I'll be experimenting with in the coming months is using one of those turbine carvers that use dental burrs and spin at 400,000RPM. That should be a significant upgrade and should bring a whole new level of precision to the inlay process.

[Chris Fournier]

Nothing wrong with that! That is fine work. I like your logo I think that it is very elegant.

Have you considered shopping this procedure out to a fella with a laser - mortising and cutting out the inlay? Souless perhaps but I've been getting stuff done by laser for some time and the quality is flawless. In the end my customers get more for less when I sub the laser work out. I realise that it may not work with the intent of handbuilding guitars!

[Harvey Pascoe]

I'm still struggling with inlays. I've tried the double bevel method with scroll saw, direct carving and the routing method and I've not found any of them very good. Could you do that inlay directly in wood without any means of hiding mistakes?

Routing by hand never gives me clean enough lines and neither does hand carving. I read about other people doing it just fine and can't figure out why I can't. I'm doing wood in wood inlays that are not as small and delicate as yours.

[John Coloccia]

Nothing wrong with that! That is fine work. I like your logo I think that it is very elegant.

Have you considered shopping this procedure out to a fella with a laser - mortising and cutting out the inlay? Souless perhaps but I've been getting stuff done by laser for some time and the quality is flawless. In the end my customers get more for less when I sub the laser work out. I realise that it may not work with the intent of handbuilding guitars!

Actually, there's a guy I'm working with now and we are experimenting with laser cutting pearl. At a minimum, I may have him laser my headstocks, even if I still cut the MOP by hand. Maybe I'll start ordering the logo too. I don't mind having a machine cut logo. Honestly, I think it's a very poor use of my time. I'm always open to making things better

Re: the logo
I worked with a graphic designer for a couple if months to nail that down. It was a great process. Once I cut it out, though, I noticed some funniness in the outline. Some of the lines have not so gracefull transitions in them. It looks ok on paper but it's very noticeable when it's cut out in stark white on black! I'm going to give him a ring tommorow and gave him go over the whole thing carefully to smooth it all out. That's the first time I've tried to inlay this new one, and I have to admit I'm pretty pleased overall.

That Turbocarver will be incredible, though, if I ever get around to it.

[John Coloccia]

I'm still struggling with inlays. I've tried the double bevel method with scroll saw, direct carving and the routing method and I've not found any of them very good. Could you do that inlay directly in wood without any means of hiding mistakes?

Routing by hand never gives me clean enough lines and neither does hand carving. I read about other people doing it just fine and can't figure out why I can't. I'm doing wood in wood inlays that are not as small and delicate as yours.

Look at the lower part of my C. That's the thickest part of the logo and really the only place I have more than a whisper of room for my bit to fit. The fit is practically perfect. The key is removing the waste before going for the outline. If you try and remove more than just a hair of material at a time, the router will get yanked all over the place. Thats why where the bit is practically the sane size as the inlay, I can't hold the line. I can't react quickly enough to keep the bit centered. Where I have a bit more room, I remove the waste first, and then I slowly attack that edge until it's perfect. Since you're only removing a whisp of material, it slices through like butter.

On any inlay larger than you see here, I'm confident could achieve a very tight fit. If I'm going to be honest with myself, I don't think I would get good results on anything much smaller than this. I know people who can. I'm an inlay hack...I'm just good enough to get by! I don't think I could go this small and have it come out perfectly though I'd like to get there one of these days.

Another helpful hint is use a foot switch! I can't tell you how many times I screwed up looking for the off button.

[Chris Fournier]

It's pretty tough to make such a fluid and sparse logo look just right isn't it! I think that it looks great but as you point out perhaps the J/C intersection and J between the C could be a bit nicer? VERY fussy evaluation I admit. I hand sign my signature on my flyfishing nets and the graphic artist who cleaned up my ink and brush efforts for my web-site really spent a lot of time on it. I know where you're coming from. http://www.cflandingnets.com I barterd with the artist that did my work and he ended up with a built-in unit in his house as repayment! Lots of hidden hours when it comes to good graphics.

The fellow that does the laser work for me charges $1/minute plus set up and he can get a lot done in a minute. If I could avoid shell dust in my shop I would! Pride of ownership being set aside of course.

[Harvey Pascoe]

I understand what you mean, John, but yours are no better than mine and you are filling, In raw wood you can't do that. I use carving knives to inscribe a deep line, then cut it to a vee on the inside of the line so, then bring on the router. Still not perfect. Could be that I just need more practice as there are people who can do this in wood perfectly. I'd like to go visit Ervin Symogi sometime, that man is incredible with inlays. Maybe Chris has got the right idea IF you got a laser nearby. If you have to ship it off, that's a cost/time problem.

Oh, yeah, the infamous off switch and Dremel reverses the position of every vertical switch in the world: up is off, down is on which I still get wrong after years of use.

[John Coloccia]

I understand what you mean, John, but yours are no better than mine and you are filling, In raw wood you can't do that.

The point I was trying to make is that mine is imperfect in the spots where I had practically no room to work, but I can nail it pretty well if I have even just a little room to work. You can to, and it really is just a matter of practice and discipline to stay away from that line until there's barely just a touch of it left. Then you can carefully chip away at it and it will be perfect. You can also go around the edge with a hammer and gently squash the wood. It will expand and fill in any small gaps. You do need to be careful not to make it TOO tight or you'll never get it out to actually glue it. It's not so much an issue with wood, but I've made mother of pearl inlays so tight that I couldn't get them back out and was forced to just glue them in with thin CA. A little bit of play is not necessarily a bad thing. Even if you have tiny gaps, a little filling with dust and hide glue will make disappear.

The next time you're out somewhere, check out the inlay work in furniture. Go into a music store, and check out the inlays up close. Look closely at the binding. You're going to start finding that even the most expensive instruments and furniture have a surprising number of flaws in them that are only perceptible when you're looking for them. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't strive for perfection, but maybe you're being too hard on yourself.

If I have time, maybe I'll get around to posting something later this weekend on larger inlays and getting a good fit. I'll see if I can get a close up video of what it looks like from my point of view. It's very difficult to find close up videos of people doing inlay work, though you see a lot of before and after I'm guessing it's because people don't want to show all the mistakes and warts before they've had a chance to fudge them.

Post a sample of your work here if you can.

[Harvey Pascoe]

Thanks for the tips and encouragement, John. I do need more practice that's for sure. But as you said, you have to wonder if its a good use of your time and the thing that constantly keeps me looking toward carved inlays is that it puts my work a notch above the others. Any inlay that that tapers to fine points, similar to your logo, is tough whereas doing a more or less regular shape is easy. A simple example is a crescent moon, carving those fine points is tough. Also difficult are fair sweeping curves which must be accurate or it not only throws the whole design off, but leaves big gaps. I've done quite a bit of filling, I've even used artists paints to color filled gaps, but whatever I do I cannot completely hide the fix, but then maybe I'm the only one who sees it. Nay, my wife who is my QC expert, will find it every time.

The only samples of my work that I could post are those done with double bevel inlays on the scroll saw. They are far better than anything we could do by carving, EXCEPT when it comes to fine points which is where that method really falls down. You can't make a 180 or reversing turn without leaving a small hole at every sharp turn.

[Harvey Pascoe]

Here's a practice piece I just did, cutting the inlay on a scroll saw with table tilted 8 degrees putting a reverse bevel on the inlay piece which is hard rosewood. The recess in cherry was cut using a beveled knife and the Dremel, so the sides are also slightly beveled. I did not bring the router bit to the line but used the beveled side of the knife to outline the recess. Then I put glue in the recess, placed the inlay over the recess, put a piece of hard wood over that then whacked it into place with an 8lb hammer, doing a forced fit that minimizes inaccuracy. Inlay size is 1.25", no filling done. The result is passable.

Obviously one cannot do that with anything that is brittle and likely to break, like mother of pearl. This method only works with a hard inlay into soft wood, or vice versa. Note that the fine points of the moon are perfect but once again it is the sweeping curves that are not. This was a first attempt but with practice I think it could be perfected.

A technique that helps getting those fine points is, again, the beveled knife, cutting first the finish side of the outline, then veeing it out on the inside. That way your outline is a tapered groove and this will help getting the router bit to the line but not over it. Or, you can just go up to the groove, then use the knife to clean it up to the line. Actually, I employed both methods where one or the other worked best.

[John Coloccia]

That's nice work, Harvey. There's always room for improvement, but that's very nice. I have a hard time believing that if you went over that with some sand paper to fill it with sanding dust, and then put a drop of glue, that anyone would ever find it. I prefer epoxy or hot hide glue for such things. The hide glue is really my favorite because it seems to be the least noticeable to my eye, especially if a piece is to be stained.

You're right, though...the long, graceful curves are the hardest things to do...at least they are for me.

What size mills are you using? My smallest one at the moment goes down to 1/32", but even that is a little grabby and anyhow, it's too big. I just picked up some really tiny diamond burrs...one of them come to a sharp point. I didn't bother to use it on the headstock because it really doesn't matter...any little filling will completely disappear because the whole thing is black. I have fooled around with it, though, and it does makes things easier, especially on the curves. You can sit there and nibble away until it's perfect.

On e problem with the StewMac base is that it's a little sticky. I'm going to put some of that drawer glide plastic tape on the bottom of mine to slick it up a bit. This is hard enough without fighting your tools

[Harvey Pascoe]

Its encouraging that you think that is good and, no, I really haven't seem much work by others first hand, mostly just pictures. The problem with inlays is that they draw attention so people are sure to see mistakes. But, as I like to say, the difference between the master and amateur is the ability to hide one's mistakes.

I have 1/32" bit also but I think the bit size is less of a problem than the top heavy Dremel, but then you are not carving into wood are you? What, plastic? That has to be tougher to do than wood where I can carve a deep outline, then vee it out and that helps keep the bit away from the line.

On the sweeping curves I tried a quarter round gouge, chipping, nibbling away at the line vertically. This was the first time I'd done that but it was far superior to the unweildy router. Gives me very precise control. Don't even get near the line with it. Try that if your material permits it.

Once again I"m reminded that the key to success is the right tool for the job. Its easier and faster than pure skill, Hahaha.

[John Coloccia]

re: plastic
The material is called fiberboard. It's made with wood fibers and then pressed. There must be some sort of binder because it feels kind of like plastic and it seems to melt a little sometimes. It machines pretty well, but it does not work by hand very well. It's almost like trying to carve plastic.

[Harvey Pascoe]

You really got me going on this, John. I tried my hand at double bevel inlays when I bought a scroll saw about 4 years ago, Did some passably good inlays but altogether disappointed. I pick it up again and all of sudden I'm doing what I couldn't do back then, a go-figure moment.

Anyway, here's a practice piece with a marlin inlay done with the scroll saw with pieces of scrap. This piece is rough, no sanding or filling, just glued in place. The lines are near perfect BUT at every sharp turning point the blade makes a small hole which is no problem as they can be filled to invisible with just glue and sandpaper. Notice how fine a point the fish's bill comes to. I was surprised that I could get it this fine without breaking. Your logo would be a snap with this method. The inlay piece and the background piece are taped together, then a hole is drilled thru them to insert the saw blade at the start point, which was the tip of the bill. The table is tilted 8 degrees so that both pieces are beveled when cut and the inlay piece fits perfectly into the background piece with the matching bevels.marlin.jpg

[Chris Fournier]

Your last crack at it is how I do it Harvey. Also I like to use the omni-directional blades in the scroll saw, no turning just change direction, very tidy. I think that the marlin came out very nicely!

My laser guy lives 200 miles away and it's emailed files and Canada Post to get the job done. Hasn't been a problem yet.