Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

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laflippin
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Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by laflippin »

Took advice of several folks here and finished this semi-botched Zank Inlay project. Sanding and several coats of polyurethane brought out the greenish color of the American poplar stock and made the yellowheart and maple bits pop out nicely, I thought. I’m still not happy about the piece of African wenge I trashed (and replaced w/ a paste made from walnut dust + purpleheart dust + epoxy)—but the wife liked the final product anyway. Next time I do this, I’m going to glue-up the yellowheart and maple inlays first and save the more delicate wenge inlay glue-up for last.
F869F5CD-158D-4F9A-8C7A-BBB581592BA3.jpeg

Holzarbeiter
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by Holzarbeiter »

Dang...I would be well pleased if I could create an inlay that beautiful. Very nicely done.
Joe

I have a chip on my shoulder....several more in my hair and lots more all over my shop floor.

laflippin
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by laflippin »

Well, thanks Joe, but it really did hurt to ruin the piece of wenge I’d intended for that caterpillar’s black parts. I can still hear its haunting recriminations from the sawdust bin in my shop. :shock:

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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by scottp55 »

NICE recovery Lee!! :)
(that's why I save freezer bags of wood chips when they're super small and bit has recut them:)
Well done!
scott
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R.N.

laflippin
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by laflippin »

Hey Scott,

I am so glad to hear that other woodworkers keep a variety of sawdust and wood-chip samples at the ready. My wife just thinks it’s weird.

L

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Tex_Lawrence
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by Tex_Lawrence »

One can hardly tell the first one was different, but this version sure looks good! (Photography hint: Crop out the light reflection for a better photo. Better yet, adjust your camera angle so the camera doesn't include the reflection either. :wink: )

My "sawdust and wood-chip samples" are just an extension of my scrap and cutoff box of wood.
Tex — Crooked Wood Products
Now there's a man with an open mind – you can feel the breeze from here.

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TomWS
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by TomWS »

laflippin wrote:
Thu Aug 05, 2021 5:58 pm
it really did hurt to ruin the piece of wenge I’d intended for that caterpillar’s black parts.
Have you tried any more wenge inlays? ISTM that Wenge, as brittle and fibrous as it is wouldn't 'like' to be cut that thin. I've inlaid into Wenge, but haven't tried the opposite.

Oh, I should add, this is a VERY NICE piece!

laflippin
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by laflippin »

Thanks, Tom. I should’ve been more clear from the outset (but was maybe too embarrassed 😞)… the male inlay piece in wenge actually did cut smoothly…no chipping and it fit into the female engraving snugly when I checked it prior to glue-up.

Then at some point during the glue-up step—using letter-press style clamps—I managed to misalign the male and female pieces without knowing it. It was only 48 hrs later while grinding off the waste backing that I realized what had happened. Only a small bit of the wenge was actually nested in the female engraving—but of course the female was nicely filled with dried glue and the unrequited male was destroyed in the waste removal step. Spent a couple of angry hours removing dried glue with a Dremel tool to salvage the project, and sawdust-epoxy filler did an okay job of subbing for the botched wenge inlay, but….that was a fairly bitter lesson about the need to very carefully nest the male & female pieces during glue-up step when any misalignment problems are still reversible.

Ach! I’m reliving the whole damn thing!

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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by FixitMike »

Suggestion: When you have a successful trial fit before gluing, add some pencil marks to show the correct location.
Good judgement comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgement.

laflippin
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by laflippin »

That’s exactly the ticket, Mike. Damn, I hate the price of laziness—it always costs too much, even at the volume discounts I qualify for.

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FixitMike
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by FixitMike »

laflippin wrote:
Tue Aug 10, 2021 5:15 pm
That’s exactly the ticket, Mike. Damn, I hate the price of laziness—it always costs too much, even at the volume discounts I qualify for.
Ha, ha! But the other side of the coin is that the truly lazy person is the one who will find the easiest way to do things.
Good judgement comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgement.

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TomWS
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by TomWS »

laflippin wrote:
Tue Aug 10, 2021 2:51 pm
the male inlay piece in wenge actually did cut smoothly…no chipping and it fit into the female engraving snugly when I checked it prior to glue-up.
Sorry to cause you so much agita, but the question remains, do you think that Wenge could be used for such fine line inlay? Ebony or something similarly rich would be smooth, but gluing is always an issue. If Wenge can be used for this kind of application, that would be a big plus in my book!

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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by laflippin »

Tom, yes I am convinced it would have been fine if not for the alignment blunder. I went over the carved wenge male piece with a plastic brush and a dentist’s bone file to remove fuzzies (something that I do automatically on any male inlay piece before the glue-up step). So, what I mean to say by that is I got a very good look at it and saw no issues—it had carved true to the Vectric tool path preview and it nested properly in the female without glue.

I briefly considered carving another male piece from wenge to replace the one I wasted during the backing removal step, but cleaning the mess of dried glue out of the female piece with a Dremel tool caused some structural changes to the engraving…so I figured that the original male pattern probably would no longer mate properly with the modified female. Grrrr. So, gnashing my teeth a bit, I settled for the epoxy-based filler workaround so as not to suffer a dead loss on the project.

I don’t even know where to find ebony these days…and especially not in boards suitable for making inlays. On the other hand, Ocooch Hardwoods sells beautiful wenge stock, 6” x 24” x 3/8” that are perfect boards for the sorts of small Zank inlay projects I like to work on. I recommend Ocooch wood very highly for Zank inlay work.

Although the crow’s wenge body in the small tray (below) is admittedly not extremely delicate it carved and inlaid perfectly.. Zoom in on the photo to note the pupil of his eye though…that’s part of his wenge body and it could perhaps be considered a “semi-fine” feature.
32143CA3-3503-428D-BFB2-9EE0AF752520.jpeg

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scottp55
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by scottp55 »

+1 for Ocooch thin stock.
I've learned my lesson well. You can't please everyone,so you have to please yourself
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TomWS
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Re: Zank Inlay—Monarch caterpillar tray finished

Post by TomWS »

@laflippin, thanks for your thorough reply. Your work has inspired me to try out some inlays using the Zank method and, in fact, try some things I would have never considered possible. THAT is a very good thing!!!

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