How to make Bandings for Wood Inlay #1: 1

Has there ever been a time when you saw a wood banding design inlaid into a table, jewelry box, or picture frame and you asked yourself the question “How did they create the banding?” I did too. Fortunately, about two years ago I came across a video on Woodtreks and it was there that I witnessed a craftsman form Orion Woodworks that explained the process of this particular banding design. The following is my interpretation.

Pictured above is the look that I’m after. Notice how the color designs of the bandings are different from one another and yet their basic pattern is alike. In my tutorial I’ll show you how to get two bandings for the price of one.
The choice of woods for the bandings are maple, walnut, and cherry. Since I have dadoed a 7/16” wide plough into the face of the picture frames I’ll make the bandings just a bit wider than that. Later they will be trimmed by sanding and fit into place.

For ripping I use a Rockler thin rip jig. Set the jig bearing in front of the left side of the blade to your desired thickness and then slide the fence over to the right side of the board. (The board is planed to thickness and has parallel edges.) In the picture above notice that a zero clearance insert is being used along with a splitter while ripping on the tablesaw. This is very important to avoid kickback.

Here you can see the interior strips being glued together. Notice how walnut and maple contrast one another.

One edge of the banding interior has been hand planed to form a straight edge. So now we can take it over to rip the other edge on the bandsaw.

We will rip the rough edge off so we will have two parallel edges for the interior of the banding. Then we are set to create the segments that will form the interior banding design.

The segments are cut on the tablesaw with the aid of a sled that provides zero clearance. The fence on the left is set to 45 degrees to the sawblade. A preliminary cut has been made and now the right side of the blade and the short point of the banding’s angle are in alignment. Notice how the stopblock on the right is set to the long point of the banding. This will give consistent segment lengths for all of our cuts.

Once a segment is cut just simply flip the banding edge for edge and continue this practice after each segment cut. Note: 1.) A sharp blade is imperative. 2.) Stay on the safe side and wear a faceshield.

Now the segments are cut and it’s important to organize them because there are two different color designs. If you look closely you’ll see a walnut stripe in each segment center, but you’ll also notice that some segments have a cherry base and some have a maple base.
When the two segment types have been separated from one another and organized into two piles we can then gather the outer banding rippings. The outer rippings will serve to sandwich the segments together to form our banding.

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