I am working on a presentation for my woodworking club. The base is a turned lidded box. I put a recess in the top of the box to put an inlay into it. I thought about how to make the inlay and the light bulb came on. I have a CNC. So I measured the recess for the inlay and found a nice piece of figured sycamore. The lidded box is mesquite.
I cut the piece of sycamore on my SO3 and was expecting to have to make another pass on the CNC or slightly widen the recess in the lidded box lid. After cutting the sycamore I took the lid and it fit perfectly.
I purposely made the recess .375" deep but made the sycamore .5". I will decide if after gluing it in to carve it on the lathe or make a design on the SO3 before gluing it in. I just left the piece of sycamore on the SO3 spoilboard and the X Y and Z will still be set if I decide to carve something on the lid.
My wheels are turning about what to do with the top of the box. Simply glue it in and some the sycamore or carve something before I glue it in. Decisions Decisions. Got to put my thunking hat on. Oh it hurts to thunk so much.
Please tell me what you think about this. The sycamore is quite figured so I dont want to hide it. I would do an advanced vcarve with 15 degree vee and a 1/16" end mill. I would then paint the wreath black.
Let me know what you think. There are many options but one would just be to just leave the sycamore alone and let it shine on its own.
I think I will go ahead and carve the design. If I dont like it I will just turn the inlay over and hide the carving on the bottom. I have found that simple is usually the best design. Complicated designs get too busy. There is a place for complicated but for me a simple design will work best.
I went ahead because I can either turn it off or just turn it over.
I put a coat of dewaxed shellac (Zinsser Universal Sanding Sealer) on. That helps prevent the acrylic paint from soaking into the grain around the carving. I will let it dry overnight and sand off the excess tomorrow. I usually dont paint on my Shapeoko but the inlay is still glued down so if I want to add or delete anything with the SO3 it is already set for X, Y and Z.
FYI: I use Windows 11 and use the Phone Link Application to attach my phone to my laptop. I just open the Phone Link and can see my pictures and just copy and paste. You can also read text messages and make phone calls from your laptop. I find this very handy. I no longer have to download pictures from my phone to my laptop to use them to post here and elsewhere.
The webpage says it works on Android and IPhone. I know it works on Android.
Here it is. The inlay sits proud of the lid so I have to decide to round off the edges or sand off the bottom before install. I think I will keep it however I could always turn it over 180 and just have the sycamore show. As dilemmas go not too bad. Heads or tails I win.
I rounded the lid on the router table and inserted it in the top. I thought it looked good so I glued it into the top. Will finish the top tomorrow with walnut oil.
So turning this and machining the inlay was a lot of fun. Now the hard part is writing up the presentation for my woodworking club. It is not that bad but just like using the restroom you are not done until the paperwork is done.
Beautiful grain in that Sycamore. Project looks good with the rounded lid.
My brother had some rather large diameter Sycamore’s cut down due to wind damage where he works. The base of the largest tree is well over 36”. Still have a few of the large pieces to mill down.
IF you like these lidded round boxes one of the woodworking magazines has a lidded top with a dragonfly inlaid on it and it looks great. One of these days I’ll have to try my hand at making one of them. I think that magazine may have been WOOD but I’m not sure. I couldn’t find the graphic. The top was just gently sloped from the middle crown down towards the sides.
