Zank inlay when background is stained

[dealguy11]

Need some advice. I need to make some Stickley style cabinets with inlays on the doors to evoke the Ellis inlays in many of their pieces (check out some online pictures...nice stuff). The background wood has to be quartersawn white oak with a brown stain and a toner (stain in the sealer to even out the color). The inlays need to be contrasting colors, and corners need to be crisp, so the Zank inlay technique could work well. But...not sure how to inlay the parts into the oak so that the stain and toner don't obscure the inlay. The Zank technique requires the inlay to be milled and sanded to the background after gluing, so I don't think I can finish the oak first...the sanding will take the color right off. How do you folks deal with a stained background in this situation? Thanks!

[Beltramidave]

I have had some luck protecting the surface by applying Oramask 813 before vcarving the female pocket. I haven't tried this on a stained surface, but it helps in preventing resin from getting where it shouldn't. Just a thought..

[mtylerfl]

Hi Steve,

That’s an interesting challenge!

First thought coming to me this morning is to use solid-surface material for the inlays, since they will not be affected by the stain nor the toner.

(Of course, another option is Epoxy inlay instead.)

[dealguy11]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll prepare a sample using epoxy - hadn't thought about that. That way I can just v-carve it and easily get a range of colors from the epoxy. Sanding will leave a nice matte finish to be covered by the top coat. Will probably need to seal the carving to keep the epoxy from bleeding, then sand off the sealer and apply the stain and toner. It will still tone the epoxy, but if I pick the colors carefully can probably ignore that. There are a lot of doors, potentially...need to find a way to make it a production friendly approach.

If the customer really wants wood I'm back to square one I guess.

[mtylerfl]

Hi Steve,

If it’s a LOT of doors, I might even consider a painted stencil method or even vinyl or decal appliqués IF those methods can yield a reasonable “inlay facsimile” effect.

[dealguy11]

The customer has a lot of furniture with Ellis inlays in it, some of it very intricate with multiple wood colors. I'm not sure I can get away with the epoxy, but will try it. I'm pretty sure a paint treatment won't pass muster.

Another alternative is to do standard inlays using actual veneers. Female side would be cut with a very small bit after the stain and toner is applied. Still not sure how to level them without screwing up the finish and wouldn't get crisp corners. Cutting the male half of the inlays will be tricky as they are small and delicate - perhaps a good job for a laser but I don't have one. Perhaps would work using the double masking tape/super glue method, but we're starting to get into a lot of time.

I wish I knew how Stickley does it.

[mtylerfl]

Hi Steve,

I found a link to a book (and other resources) that might prove useful:

http://craftsmanplans.com/Book%204%20TOC_4.htm

[scotttarnor]

I did a little reading and found this, looks like they used veneer.

[dealguy11]

Scott - I think you've solved it. I visited Mitch's website and you can buy the completed marquetry with stain stencils. Cool!!

[laflippin]

This whole question may be moot by now if you've already decided on a different approach you wish to use but I've wondered about similar kinds of problems that can limit the useful scope of Zank Inlay methods. Given your basic information as a starting point, I might consider constructing and sanding down the entire Zank project using unfinished white oak and a inlay wood such as walnut. Application of any given stain, as long as it's not too dark (very dark stain might be kind of weird anyway for quarter-sawn white oak, IMO), would then modestly darken both woods in the inlay project to give a final piece that should still show very good contrast. One obvious problem with this simpleton idea is that you couldn't do an inlay using a light-colored wood for the male piece and hope to get any meaningful contrast after staining.

[dealguy11]

I had thought about that, but there are a couple of problems. The oak needs to be stained a medium to dark brown, and there would be little contrast with walnut. Also the specific style of inlay has both light colored, and actual colored woods (like greenheart and purpleheart) in the inlay that would be obscured with a stain.

In this particular case, it turns out that making the inlay myself is probably not the right solution. There is a guy that makes replicas of the originals, already glued into a full sheet of oak veneer, and also provides a plastic stencil that exactly covers the inlay to protect it during staining. It turns out that this is exactly how Stickley has always done these inlays...they bought them from a marquetry company already glued up and just applied the veneer to a substrate. The cost is fairly reasonable, and there are no prizes for doing it on a CNC myself when I can just buy it. Sometimes a CNC isn't the right hammer for the nail.

[mezalick]

Steve,
If you're looking for real Stickley finish, why not use fumed oak that was "fume" completely ?
Then the colour would be not an issue.
Michael

[dealguy11]

I researched this as well because I thought the same thing. Stickley stopped fuming early in the 1900's. I think everything from the 1920's on was stained, for 2 reasons as near as I can tell. First was safety. The ammonia they used was concentrated, nasty stuff. Even with a tent, you still need some kind of air movement to avoid building up poisonous fumes in the shop. The only place in my shop large enough to safely fume anything would be my paint booth, and that would block it from being available for anything else.

Second, you can get a more consistent look with staining/toning - there are several species of "white oak" with noticeable color differences. This is a large project with a lot of doors, panels and moldings. Some of it will be plywood and some will be solid wood and there will certainly be color variations that need to be addressed.