The Woodshop Shed

Large Inlays - not easy even with a CNC

Furnished content.
(from WoodNet.net)


I made some inlayed boards for a person where the inlay is fairly large. That brought up some problems that aren't an issue with small inlays. The large flat area under the bulk of the inlay will prevent the edges from seating properly if there's too much glue, but too little glue results in unbonded areas that sound hollow when tapped.

To make these, you create a male and a female part. The perimeters are cut with a V-bit; I used a 90 degree bit which gives edges at 45 degrees. Since my customer wanted theboard to have the grain running at 25, I had to make a blank that had almost twice the area of the 12" square final board.





After the parts are glued together, and allowed to dry long enough that it doesn't warp when you remove the clamps, the extra part of the male piece is sliced or planed off and then machined flush with the background. If the board warps (much at all) it is very hard to do that w/o removing too much material in some areas. When that happens, gaps start to appear along the joints even though the two pieces should mate perfectly over their entire mating surface.There are lots of ways to fail at this, and I found a lot of them.

Anyway, these are what I ended up with. Not perfect, but pretty close. Two are cherry and maple, the other sapele and beech. Funny how the whale of the sapele/beech board looks larger than those from cherry/maple.



John

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