Nakashima Inspired Coffee Table #3: Wenge Inlays

To prevent the large crack in the branch portion from moving and for a decorative touch, I wanted to add dutchmen from a piece of wenge, selected by my friend and the eventual owner of the finished table. I have owned the Freud template routing set for many years and finally used it. I purchased a clear plastic router base to mount the template to my Porter-Cable plunge router as the adapter provided with the router was very hard to center. After practicing on a few scraps, I routed the wanlut slab and then the patches in the wenge. I made sure that the patches were a bit thicker than needed. With a small amount of sanding the corners of the patches, they fit perfectly. I used a belt sander to take down the excess and then finished with a 6 inch ROS. Here are a few pics.

For the last picture, I wiped a bit of mineral spirits on the piece to give a preview of the finished top.

Next up will be to make the legs.

Thanks for looking, Tim.

-- She asked me, "Who are you going to please with that?" I said, "Me."