Well I haven’t been here in a while. Summer is usually slow for cribbage board business and I actually spent two months doing no woodworking at all. First break I’ve had since I started making boards about 4 years ago. I did spend some time improving my shop and putting in a dust-collection system. I’ll update the pictures of it soon.
Anyway I was contacted by a potential customer who liked my newest board design (the paua rosa with maple burl board in my projects page). But he wanted it in gabon ebony with amboyna burl inlay. Wow. This would require a piece of ebony 6 1/4” x 20”. It’s rare to find good ebony beyond 5” wide. After several days of calling just about every wood supplier I could find on the internet I was about ready to give up. I decided to make a run over to Owl Hardwood in Des Plaines, though they seldom have decent ebony.
Well to my surprise I found the perfect piece of wood in fantastic condition. Almost exactly the right size… for $100. Good thing money is no object for this customer.
I fired up my miter saw, table saw and planer for the first time in months and that beautiful piece of ebony is now sitting on my worktable waiting for me to draw the pattern on it. This is going to be my best board yet.
-- Jeff, www.doodler.com
5 comments so far
MsDebbieP
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14090 posts in 1039 days
posted 808 days ago
where’s the pix??
you know, before, during, after stages???
can’t wait to see the finished project. After your holiday from woodworking you must be really eager to create again! :) How exciting
-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)
Doodler
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posted 808 days ago
Here’s your picture. I just finished drafting the pattern onto the board. The tools I used are shown as well.
When I first started making boards I tried several methods of creating patterns to transfer to the board, but I quickly found out that hand drafting the pattern each time is the only way to ensure perfection.
Next step: routing out the inlets with my Dremel…
-- Jeff, www.doodler.com
MsDebbieP
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14090 posts in 1039 days
posted 807 days ago
that’s fascinating… I didn’t realize the layout would be so complex.
Looking forward to pix of the next step!
-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)
Doodler
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22 posts in 948 days
posted 806 days ago
Finally a nice day here in the Chicago area. We were without power almost all yesterday and our internet was knocked out for over a day. I have not had a chance in this chaos to do more work on the board, but I’ll get to it in the next day or two.
-- Jeff, www.doodler.com
Doodler
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22 posts in 948 days
posted 789 days ago
OK, after numerous delays the past week I finally got back to it. The next step is to route out the inlets. I use a Dremel rotary tool mounted in a router base with a 1/8” fishtail router bit to do all this work. With a fence attachment I cut the horizontal lines. I do a first pass with the router bit about 1/32 from the final edge, then a second pass after slightly adjusting the fence to get the cut right to the lines.
I have to keep my mind alert and double check every move to make sure I don’t go over the vertical lines (which I did a couple times early on).
Next I do the vertical lines. I remove the fence attachment and use a clamping tool guide to guide the router base along the lines. The tool guide is clamped to the table on my left on top of a scrap piece of wood the same thickness as the ebony. Again I do it in two passes, but without a fence to make small adjustments with I use a small piece of 1/16” wood on which I scribed lines that show exactly where the top and bottom edges of the router bit will cut.
Yes, that is the amboyna burl which will be the inlay above the ebony.
After I cut all the horizontal and vertical lines I will carefully cut the curved segments by eyeball, keeping the bit to about 1/16” from the lines. I’ll post another entry when I’ve completed these steps in a couple of days.
-- Jeff, www.doodler.com