inlays in male inlays

[litzluth]

I've done many inlays, but this is my first attempt to put inlays in an inlay. The attached dolphin inlay has several areas in which I would like the male inlay part to have contrasting wood (e.g., in the dorsal fin, the mouth and eye areas). I know that I would begin by creating the female outer boundary. I could then cut the male inlay (again, the full outer boundary), but I'm not figuring out the strategy for putting inlays in the male inlay piece.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Mike

[Rcnewcomb]

Look at this thread: Multiple wood inlays

[TReischl]

Obviously it can be done and for something with a couple of pieces not too bad.

The process requires that you leave the piece on the machine, cut, glue, wait for glue to dry, flatten, cut, glue, wait for glue to dry, flatten. . .wash rinse, repeat until all the pieces are done.

In other words the machine is tied up until everything is done while glue is drying.

The pieces I have posted on the forum have had 20 or more pieces in them. Figure that you have to let the parts dry at least half an hour (which is really pushing it if you are going to cut them), the process would take at least 10-12 hours.

The v-inlay process works just fine.

[litzluth]

Thanks Randall. That helped. My strategy is now to work backwards: cut and insert the inlays into the male inlay first, then cut the main profile, and then drop the inlaid main inlay into that.

[litzluth]

Thanks Ted. I've never tried the v-carve inlay process, always just used the standard end mill route. Going to have to get up to speed on that!
I'm typically inlaying very thin material (1 to 1.25 mm wood, abalone/paua shell, or mother of pearl) so I wonder how a v-carve process would work with material that thin.

[RebeccaJ]

Hi Mike,

The thread Randall posted is a good one to read, as are all the other VInlay threads... I learnt a lot (and am still learning all sorts) through this forum I did a talk last year in Chicago at the User Group Meeting about my first experience with the VCarve Inlay technique: https://www.vectric.com/vectric-communi ... CarveInlay and funnily enough about multiple inlays. You may find this video interesting. In terms of cutting the second/third.. Inlays I used dowels/pegs (where I cut all the way through the material and into the spoil board) to ensure I had the same XY positions (where I made a note of my X0Y0 settings) and these dowels would always be my reference point. This forum is an excellent place to get advice for anything, so you've started at the right place and there are PRO'S to help you out with this particular technique!

Thanks,
Beki

[Jim_in_PA]

Beki's latest training video on YouTube is about this very thing...and I found it very helpful, particularly the discussion about depth. I had some issues recently with a project for another maker client because of what she talks about.

Ah...and I see she commented.

[TReischl]

Thanks Ted. I've never tried the v-carve inlay process, always just used the standard end mill route. Going to have to get up to speed on that!
I'm typically inlaying very thin material (1 to 1.25 mm wood, abalone/paua shell, or mother of pearl) so I wonder how a v-carve process would work with material that thin.

And here I thought you were doing the v carve process.

I have done some marquetry work but I use a small laser to cut all the pieces out of different color woods. I don't worry about sharp points because I use a 1.5 mm end mill to profile cut the base piece and follow that cut with the laser. The laser has just enough oomph (highly technical term) to remove the small radii in sharp corners and also creates a very shallow narrow trench that helps when fitting in the pieces.

I usually make a scrap base piece. That is used to assemble all the itty bitty pieces by taping them. That way final glue up is a one shot process with no worries about pieces getting out of alignment.