Uncharted Territory... My First Inlay & How I Did It

Well, I been hanging around here at Lumber Jocks for going on a year now. I have learned so much from so many, and can honestly say I owe a lot of what I know today to the sharing of knowledge here. So after attempting my latest “Exploration” into the wild world of woodworking I figured this would be a good a time as any for me to pass along a little blog on how I did my “Dreaded Inlays” .....

Long story short, I was hit up by a coworker asking me if I could build her daughter a jewelery box. We looked at some stock I had at the house and as you would guess…. She picked the two hardest woods to work with (for me at least).... Purple heart and curly maple….. Fun times!

To up the ante she requested a “J” be placed on the top. Well, I thought about this long and hard, and come to the conclusion the only way to get it in there permanently was to inlay it. To make maters even worse is for the life of me I can’t just do something simple (my bride reminds me of this on a regular basis). So I went in search for a “Fancy” looking “J”. This is what I found….

After figuring out the design it was time to cut it out. Now I will be the first to admit that this is my first real scroll saw project. So it didn’t come out quite as perfect as i would of liked, but luckily the design allows a little breathing room. Here is what it looked like after about an hour and a half of eye crossing, headache inducing, scroll saw work…lol

After it was all cut out I used a router to make the recess to accept the “J”....

Then glued in place.

Next step was to let the saw dust fly! BTW…. I had to force myself to eat one of my brides “Would Be World Famous If The World Knew About It” personal pecan pies to get a catch pan for the saw dust. Ohhhh the things we force ourselves to do in the name of our work….lol

After the dust cleared I mixed the purple heart saw dust with “Clear” drying epoxy. Make 100% sure the package says clear. If not the epoxy will turn an amberish hue. I then put the epoxy mix into the cut outs. I also used a small tooth pick to make sure it way down into the cuts. After it cured I used a block plane set really shallow to slowly remove the excess. I had to do this twice to get an even fill. Once I got it really close with the plane I finished it up with a card scrapper. Once it was trued up to my liking I did a finish sand on both sides and put the bad boy into its new purple heart frame….

Well, I would love to share more of this little project, but I don’t want to ruin its time in the projects page. I hope this makes at least a little sense (only on third cup of coffee this morning), and someone will find it useful. Good luck and thanks for taking the time to read my first “How I Did This” blog….

-- Dan ~ Texarkana, Tx.