The image of St. Louis Cathedral visible in the first photo reflects one of my other hobbies: photography. I took this back in April and had a 24×36 enlargement made.

By the way, the chair in the foreground was rescued from my neighbor’s trash. The only thing wrong with it were numerous superficial nicks and scratches that were easily touched up.

I was intrigued by this lot of inlay banding that the seller claimed to have purchased at an estate sale in Canada. It was still wrapped in its original packaging, complete with shipping label and C.O.D. sticker in the amount of $16.62 (Canadian) from the now-defunct T. Eaton Company. The seller thought the date was September of 1959, but I can’t really tell for sure. It is obviously very old. The original packaging was open, and presumably some of the inlay had been used. It was advertised as about 35 pieces (3’ long). When I unwrapped it, there were actually over 50 pieces. The bands were thinner than I had judged from the photo on eBay… they range in width from 3/32” up to 1/4”.

What amazes me is the fine detail in these. I’ve used inlay banding before, but this appears to be far superior in detail and quality to anything I’ve purchased previously. The photos don’t really do them justice. In case you are wondering, my winning bid was $58.01.

If anybody has any background info that would shed more light on the history of these, I’d love to hear it. I’m looking forward to working these into future projects.

I’ve done some straight-line inlay work, but I’ve really wanted to get into the sort of thing shown here. So my challenge is this: Would one of you guys (or gals) who is good at this sort of thing be willing to photograph the whole process on a similar project and take us through it step by step in a blog?

If there are no takers, could anyone at least point me to a blog or video somewhere on the internet that might be what I’m looking for? I’m sure I’m not the only jock who would be interested.

Anyway, you can see them here.