Paul and Damien's Vinlay

Thanks All, Should be an interesting day. Going to cut the "Made in Maine" out in stages to see if there's a high point that hung me up(like the first "wood" in Vivaldi).
I thought it was because I had "tapped" that 4X11.5" Made in Maine section and then that high spot wouldn't let the rest seat firmly because of the Cast Iron being perfectly flat.
BUT, I'm looking at some of the pics now and thinking the "a" and the "d"(gave me problems in"Wood" before) are hanging up. Have to put both male and female on the same layer I think and then examine under 2D "Solid" preview to compare the material removed.
Going to recut with a 45 degree and .02 deeper and see if that gives me a clean female. Think I may have to take each individual letter and resize by a few percent, but really want to rescue this so I know if it's doable.
Jeff, Yeah thought for sure that the "state" on would be my problem child, but instead came out perfect. Even the .19" font- Dad was blown away by the tiny piece of maple in the top of the a in Maine.
I'll take pics as this is supposed to be a zero glue gap and the "Maine" seems to be "Almost" fully seated in sections.

Found out everything had moved on me! Reregistered on the dot's in the "i" in "in" first, then fine tuned on the "i" in Maine, and then further rezero'd X,Y on 2 letters. Humidity on the cheap MDF (unsealed) spoilboard is the most likely culprit(buttons had remained clamped since Weds(raining) but had to move X .05" positive to align the 1/16" with the buttonholes again).
Where no glue gap showed in the inlay I'm now down to .09" and still showing Maple. Female had a flat depth of .1". 50% of the "Maine" as you can see on the .5" depth pic was less than that .05" pressed in. Comparing glue gaps, I would say the state outline had .09" of wood or better fully pressed into the .1"female.
Increased size of the dots in the "i"'s by 2% to make up for the error when registering them, probably do the same with each individual letter and use a 45 degree(instead of 60) and go down to .12" flat depth.
Hope that made sense.

.05" pass depth.

Posted about a dozen new pics on Vectric forum of the Replacement of the Maple with Padauk and have to go into shop/ unclamp last piece and surface so won't duplicate pictures here. Wonder if I can mess it up totally at the last second:) Betcha I double check my decimal points:)
Had a few good remarks on glue from others and some good tips, so if you're interested go to like the bottom of page 5.
http://forum.vectric.com/viewtopic.p...20529&start=75

Surfaced to .015" above surface. I did sand to almost flush, but the top of the "i" in "in" had a chip out than needs repair, Probably because it was a chip repair that was substandard. In pic, whitish are was where I had to hand sand an already glued section that was slightly too high to allow the the "de" to seat fully. The white is thinned lacquer dust. Lacquer was to prevent CA from discoloring wood outside the joint and seems to reduce ANY fibre tearout in Walnut.

Now I am trying my luck on that, let's see if it looks reasonable after machining off the inlay backing tomorrow. I have a bad feeling that I used way too much glue :rolleyes:

For removing the fuzz and swarf in the carved recesses I found the glass fiber eraser sticks very effective. I just used them by hand, not even in the Proxxon pen sander.

This is actually the project where I needed the edge bevel as discussed in another thread today. Material is Myrtlewood and Cherry.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-s...o/DSC02781.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...o/DSC02785.JPG

Female looks really good Gert. On the male piece you probably discovered it carves Way deep and blows right by your pass depth settings because of your start depth and it acts like there's no wood there. On male I lowered my Z plunge Way down to .3IPS and X,Y to .7 and just adjusted RPM to get chips, but way smaller chips than normal(.25"Onsrud engraving bit .002flat was warm but not hot). I also set pass depth for the bit so its second pass was only a clean up pass basically(.008") and on Padauk got away with only one run, although Paul and others recommend 2 passes to eliminate deflection. Maple I always run twice on both,but second is a full depth/speed pass.
I see tearout on the cherry male at about the surface height which may cause you heartache, BUT because cherry is so much softer, if your clamping pressure was strong enough it may deform the Cherry into the Marblewood.
What bit and glue did you use? I've wanted to do a "Tree of Life"-Hope it comes out great!
A downcut or straight bit for eliminating waste, going across the grain in a raster with small stepover leaving like .02" seems to work well, but you're probably using your thickness sander carefully set.
What were your flat depth settings? Leaving it clamped(WAY clamped) for 24 hours is the hardest part:) It's really neat to see it come to life as the waste disappears. How did it seat? When you dry fit, some pencil marks makes it much easier not to smear glue everywhere as it doesn't Go until it's perfectly aligned.
I think you'll Really get into it.
Can't wait to see your second! I've always wanted to see an inlaid matchbox!!:):)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scottp55

.........I see tearout on the cherry male at about the surface height which may cause you heartache, BUT because cherry is so much softer, if your clamping pressure was strong enough it may deform the Cherry into the Marblewood.
What bit and glue did you use? I've wanted to do a "Tree of Life"-Hope it comes out great!
A downcut or straight bit for eliminating waste, going across the grain in a raster with small stepover leaving like .02" seems to work well, but you're probably using your thickness sander carefully set.
What were your flat depth settings? Leaving it clamped(WAY clamped) for 24 hours is the hardest part:) It's really neat to see it come to life as the waste disappears. How did it seat? ..........

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yes, tearout is pretty bad and next time I will try slower speed (believe I used 2 ips ?) and a downcut bit for the flats. But this piece of Cherry was really brittle. I cut it from a garage sale board and it may have been very old.
Otherwise 60 deg. Kyocera bit and 1/8" for flats.
The female side is only 0.08 deep flat and the male side 0.06 down and 0.06 deep flat. Next time I will make the female side 20/1000 deeper than necessary to allow for some sanding loss. Glue is Titebond Translucent and I cut most of the excess away with a 3/4" flat router bit, then drum sander then ROS.

At the end it does have a bunch of tiny flaws but overall I like the result. I did not expect the worm holes on the bottom to be so visible after finishing.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...o/DSC02786.JPG

Came out beautiful for a first shot Gert!!
Yeah, the sanding gets tricky on the really fine details that are shallow, but it really is a nice method.
My translucent from Amazon and 4 other glues should be in this week as well as some deep reach Shopfox C-clamps.

The translucent Titebond works quite well and does not show. However, I found that larger blobs still tend to smear when sanded and getting hot, especially with the ROS. This seems to be general problem with PVA glue and maybe it would have helped to thin the glue a bit to avoid the large accumulations.

Next time I will try table top epoxy as glue. Maybe a bit messy to apply but at least it will set reliably overnight, sand cleanly and fill any gaps.