I once scroll sawed out an elephant puzzle that spelled ELEPHANT. I had disassembled the puzzle and put int a gift box. When she opened it up it was embarrassing because she could not assemble the puzzle that spelled ELEPHANT. Some people do not have the sparital skill to see the image in their mind. If I had thought that she could not have put the puzzle together I would not have made it and given it to her. I put it together and it is stilling on display at her house.
@MikeG
I just used some glued edge pine board.
Carved it, then spray painted everything black.
Then I par sanded the top surface, and went over it with some white oil pastel.
Then finished with some spray polly.
It doesn’t look like you added any relief between the pieces. (kerf)
Another way to do this would be to ‘lie like hell’ and tell the software you are using a 0.115" tool and then cut it on the machine with your 0.125" tool. This would take an extra 0.005" off of each cut, leaving you with a little kerf to allow the parts to easily slip together.
Yes another set of coasters today and very pleased with how the inlay turned out. That said I did notice I really need to tram the spindle. I had removed the aluminum shim when I swapped the router for the spindle and didn’t really bother checking if I needed some adjustments. I was usually surfacing stock front to back and that looked fine however today I surfaced the coasters left to right and saw how off it was. Will have to do the full maintenance routine this upcoming weekend.
How will you finish the wood? Do you put cork or another material underneath. I found sheets of 1’x1’ Cork at Ikea and have been whittling it down little by little. The Ikea cork does not have any adhesive so I use 3M 77 spray adhesive to attach my cork.
I have used PSA velvet in the past but that has gotten too expensive. I looked at the flocking kits but they make a terrible mess.
Great suggestion but right now I only have 1" thick boards/stock which means alot of wasted materials on the inlay side as you turn most of it into sawdust. I need to get a bandsaw so I can resaw the 1" materials into thinner pieces for the inlay side. I went with the cherry inlay because I got my hands on some thins stock, pretty sure they were selling with guitar fret boards in mind but it was perfect for this project. Ill be visiting my uncle who has a workshop with all the tools, I’ll have to mill some of my stock while there to do this.
I found a roll of 1/16 cork, was thinking of machining a 1/32 pocket on the underside to know where to apply CA glue to bond the cork. For finish a clear coat of minwax perhaps but havent thought that far out yet.