| Blog series by wdkits1 | updated 1241 days ago | 6 parts | 8069 reads | 50 comments total |
Part 1: Milling the stock
I will begin this WIP series with a little history. I have been creating Intarsia since 1992 after reading an article in Wood magazine by Judy Gayle Roberts about how to do this beautiful woodworking artform. After doing a couple of her patterns, I started creating my own Intarsia patterns and began collecting many different woods to use in my art. Learning about the wide selection of natural colors and grains of the various woods and being able to incorporate them into my pieces is still the...
Part 2: Box Glue-up
In my first installment I showed the steps to cut and prep the stock for the custom keepsake box.This installment shows the steps to glue -up the box and cut the lid.I begin by gluing in the accent strips on all of the box sides. I am using Holly strips that I sized 1/4” wide by 1/8” thick I use CA glue and tap them in place. Once the glue has set up I use a small flex-blade saw to trim the ends flush with the miters. I use a sanding block to sand the strips flush with th...
Part 3: The Pattern
I will start by creating the scaled background for the intarsia. Using Word office 2007 I did the 6” x 8” pattern sheet that fits into the top recess of the box lid and put the oval 1/2 ” from the edges. These are the subject photos that I will use for the intarsia. The first pic is from Buffalo Jack’s ranch in NC. This is the first draft of the hand drawn pattern that I made. As you can see, there will be lots of tiny pieces that will test my scrolli...
Part 4: Beginning the intarsia
I will begin this stage of the intarsia process by resawing the wood that will become the background for the box lid. I am using Lacewood that will be bookmatched cut to 3/16” After the resawing is done I have cut the bookmatched pieces to length and have placed them on the workbench and belt sand them to remove saw marks. I like to set the pieces on a piece of 60 grit sandpaper to help hold them still while I sand them with the sander. Bookmatched pieces sanded to 220 gr...
Part 5: More Intarsia tips and tricks
As most of you know, I finished the first buffalo box so what I am showing now is the intarsia of the second buffalo box. I worked out all of the pattern bugs on the first one so this one went a little faster. This first photo shows how I transfer the shape of the buffalo from the pattern to the sticky back label paper using carbon paper.The buffalo bodies are cut from 3/8” walnut,the heads are 3/8” peruvian walnut and the baby buffalo is 3/8”butternut.. The next photo s...
Part 6: Gluing up and finishing
Well I managed to get all of the intarsia pieces cut, shaped and fitted into the lid of the box so now it’s time to glue everything in place. I like to remove a few pieces at a time and glue them in. In these photos I use a pin to pry a piece up so that I can apply CA glue. I will continue removing pieces and applying glue until all pieces are glued into place. Everything is glued in and looking good. Once the glue is dry, it’s time to apply the finish to the intarsia....
