Oval inlays

[Phil Mueller]

Other than the fact that the ovals were hand made, this really isn’t very neander. My confession is I love my routers.

I pondered for awhile the best method to get as accurate as possible the opening for my ovals. I can’t see a knife line well enough, and a pencil line seemed too fat. Then I decided to use the Derek Cohen dovetail suggestion of using blue tape.

I covered the area with tape and then double taped the oval down to the blue tape.

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Then used an xacto to mark/cut the tape around the oval.

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Using a trim router with 1/4” bit, I removed the bulk. Then used a StewMac base with my dremel and a 1/16” bit, and did the final cut up to the tape edge.

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After a few tries and further finessing with the dremel, it was a nice press fit.

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Any minor gaps should fill when glued up.

My one main learning was how to hold the knife when marking around the oval. The first attempt, I had the knife tilted to get to the very bottom edge. It turned out undersized and a real pain to enlarge the whole thing. When holding the knife vertical to trace, it worked well with just some minor fiddling. So, I guess knife skills 101 when tracing for an inlay.

Sorry for the power tool post...but as I said...love my routers.

[Mark Rainey]

Thanks for posting your method of work Phil. I assume you meant you double stick taped the oval down to the blue tape?. Interesting how the tilt of the knife can effect precision work - good to know to avoid the same mistake in my future woodworking.

[Phil Mueller]

Yes, sorry it wasn’t clear. Double stick the oval to the blue tape. I should also mention that the veneer oval was glued to a piece of 1/8” veneer to make it thicker. The router was set to leave the oval a hair thicker than the surrounding surface, and I sanded the bottom of the oval to get a flush fit. I always get nervous sanding veneer and didn’t want to go through it once glued in.