How To Inlay

[Hooker53]

OK folks. Lets get started. First I'd like to say, I'm no Pro at this and do not prefess to be. I'v done less then a 100 of these, so that still sets me as an amateur. My aim by doing this is to resurrect a dying art. I'm sure there are others that has differant and mayby better ways to do this and please chime in, if you do.

The first type of inlay we will look at here is an Ivory/bone type inlay. I don't go around looking for ivory or bone everyday but have had these piano key tops for years. These for inlays are both good and bad. The good thing is you can still find them on E-Bay from time to time. The bad---------is they are very thin to work with. In the photo you will see I have partially overcome this problem of the thin, .045 to .60 Thousands thick inlay stock by bonding them with 1/32" thick aircraft plywood. I use a two part 30 Min.epoxy to do this and clamp them up in a small Palmgreen 3" vise for an hour or two. Just don't Squeeze all of your epoxy out of the operation by clamping to hard. You also want to mark on the bottom of each inlay FL and FR if this is to be an inlay job on both sides of the stock or grip.



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[Hooker53]

Now lets look at our subject that we are going to incert the inlay into. In this case, it's a Winchester Model 67, about a 1943 to 45. This little rifle was too far along to reserve as Orig and wanted to customize it for my oldest girl and in time will become my Grandsons first rifle. If you have never undertook this, please use an old stock. The reason I say stock, is because most inlays you do, will not be on a flat surface. There's a great deal of differance in inlaying into a flat surface and a rounded one. these will be about midway of the barrel channel. Lay your inlay in diff positions to see where it will look the best. Although it's rounded you want to find the best place that is the flattest in using these thin inlays. If your radius is more abrupt, your inlay may clear up showing the bonding ply rather then all ivory. I measured up from the trigger pin hole as a Ref. so I could get the inlay even on both sides.









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[Hooker53]

Now that we are thinking about where we are going to insert the inlay, lets back up and see how to prepair the inlay. In this photo, I have cut a cardboard pattern the size and shape of the inlay. Your first should be of all straight sides for ease of getting the hang of it. Mark around the pattern with a #2. I try to get as many inlays out of a single keytop that I can and throw nothing away. I have a small Dremel scroll saw to cut the inlay out with. Use as fine and as small a blade as to can buy. Don't push to hard on the cut and stay outside of your line for later Ref. This would not be Possible inless you had bonded this ivory as it's very fragile.



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[Hooker53]

It helps to have a few choice tools to do these inlays and in this case a disk sander is no acception. Adjust your table on a 5 degree angle down so that the bottom of your bonded inlay will be the smallest after you sand up to the line all around. This angle on your inlay is infact a saftey net. More on this later. If you are doing two inlays as I am here, sand both now. Keep them both the same size and try to sand just half the line. Doing this will insteal precision mindedness. Ha. Also, have as small of a gap between the sandpaper and the table as you can see I camped a Pc of Alum sheet to bridge the gap. This will hold down on sanding chatter and give you more control up to your line. Now. Lets stop for a minute and let me say this. I'v read and heard of some that have boiled and shaped thier ivory to the conture of the stock before they trace around the inlay. If you have a thick enough inlay that would be ok but since I bond mine, i don't. The reason is, you would have to carve your pocket on a radius to match it and I would rather do a short cut and carve mine flat. It's easyer.


152836

[Hooker53]

OK. We have talked about prepairing our inlay and deciding where on the stock we are going to put it. Lets talk about the hand tools we are going to use. As you can see in the photo, it don't take many. The first is a inletting rasp I bought from Brownells years ago and it's still going strong. The second is a surgical scalpel which is a must. If a modeling razer knife is all you have, It will have to do. The 3rd is a heavy offset chisel/gouge. I use this one very little but sometimes you need a little more on very hard wood. The 4th is the one I use the most. I use it to start the line cuts and do most of the wood removel. I word about how I sharpen these. When I first buy these I sharpen them on a hard fine Arkansas stone. I then take it to a 8" hard felt wheel on a Baldar polisher and stroupe it to bring it up to VERY sharp. After that and every inlay, I repolish it. I never go back to the stone because I don't let the edge get that far away from being dull. I also slightly round that edge so I can roll it along the line I did around the inlay. It's easyer to roll cut that for my hands then to pull it along the line. You can over run your line by doing that.

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[Hooker53]

Now lets talk a little more about placment and how i get my master line on the stock. On the left of the inlay is a mark that is 6" from the trigger pin hole on both sides of the stock. The line from the top of the barrel channel is 5/8" down. Now take some Cyanoacrylate (crazy glue) put a small dot on the two tips of the inlay on the longest line and I mean a small dot. If it's the slow drying type, the better. Line it up with your marks and hold it in place sighting down the stock so your two short tips are the same distance off the wood. Now take a very sharp pointed #2 and go around your inlay so your line will represent your small 5 degree shape on the bottom. After you get your lines on the stock take the Surg blade and skim under it to take it off. They will for the most part just click off in your hands.

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[Hooker53]

Now comes the part that you must slow down and take your time with. Ya gotta get this one right. I take the little rounded chisel and starting from about 1/8" from the courner of the upper right line, roll it along the line. For my eyes/hands and tech, I try to roll the blade along the line taking a small amount of the inside of the line. Go very lite on this first cut. After you roll the first cut, afix your blade half way so as not to use the whole blade to roll your next cut. The blade will line up with your first cut and stay straighter along the line. After going all the way around your pattern, start increasing your depth. When your increashing your depth, Hold the handle of your blade to the inside of the pattern so you will create an angle on your edge cut. In other words, when the packet is done, the bottem will be larger then the top/surface. This will give your inlay something to push against and move out with your inlay to create a tight fit on the press in and gluing step. Let me download some more photo's from my Camera and we will continue.

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[Hooker53]

Now. Let me take a moment to say, This is not the easiest type of thin inlay to do or start out on if you have never attempted it. A thicker exotic wood inlay is easyer. Not to fear. That comes next. I'm showing you this one first because I'v done them before and want to get the hard ones out of the way first. Ha. Now. After you have roll cut around your lines and have a fair impression to start with, grab your Surg blade and cut deeper around your pattern. Don't forget to keep that angle going on your cut. When I start this, I start the plung at the top middle of the pattern and pull the blade almost to the end courner and stop. Turn the stock around and starting in that corner finish cutting that line. I don't pull the blade all the way up the the courner of the line because you can overrun your inlay pocket very easy here. Go all the way around the pattern and get it around a 1/16" to 3'32" deep. 152851

[bangerjim]

Good work and good tutorial! [smilie=w:

I do all my "work" with a jeweler's saw and a crow's foot support. I do not use X-acto knives, as they can split the grain badly and ruin a total piece. And do not leave perfectly square edges and sides normally.

Here is a clock bottom I recently restored. The inlay/marquetry was missing and I got the exact design out of one of my many antique clock books for that make and model:

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This one is from the top of a 8 tune cylinder music box that had been underwater! The top piece was totally gone and I found a picture of the box in one of my music box restoration books:

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(I also did a lot of metal and mechanical work to the movement to get it back to original).

Background is rosewood. Dyed woods are done with aniline dies. Any edge tinting is with hot sand. Banding around the edges is solid brass. All filling is done with burn-in shellac sticks, scraped smooth, then rubbed down with pumice and rottenstone. No sandpaper! Finishes are shellac sealer and then multiple top coats of sprayed & rubbed-out lacquer. No Minwax or wiping finishes here! Then a little careful "antique distressing" in the appropriate wear spots to make it look like it is 150+ years old.

The finished products above also result from generous and careful applications of elbow grease!


There is more to life than just guns! But I do those too, when needed. Mainly ivory, silver, and gold.

bangerjim

[Blackwater]

So, mostly, it's just using good and apt tools and good judgment in an age-old process, right? It's been a very long time now, but I made a jewelry box for my Mom way back when, and I did a little inlay on it. That was the end for me, though. Never did another. I was young and had grand visions of what I could and wanted to do elsewhere. Mine came out pretty decent for a young kid with few tools to work with. it just took so long to git-r-done that I didn't want any more of it. But now, things are different, and you've tempted me. Thanks .... I think? ;^).

[bangerjim]

It is a mix of tools, talent, time, and "touch" (artistic). Good eyesight helps too! And good lighting.

And if your are using X-acto knives....a fresh box of Band-Aids. :veryconfu

banger

[Hooker53]

Great work Bangerjim and thanks. I too, do intricate and multi overlay work as well from time to time, BUT, I didn't start out doing it years ago. Ha. Blackwater, folks just like you are the reason I did this. Get them tools out and go to it. Hope i didn't start something over that you were staying away from. Ha. NOW. After we have cut around the pattern and have it deep enough for a start, lets take our first wood removal cut. For me, I always choose to cut against the grain on the first cut and as long as your first line cuts are deep enough you will be ok. The main thing is that you don't take your first cut to deep. You want to run out in your line cut so the first chip or two will come free of it's own accord. Whatever you do, resist the urge to prise the wood up with your tool. It can tear the wood and also deform the opposite line of your pocket after you get further along. Just don't get into this habit.


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[Hooker53]

turn your stock over and do the same thing on the next line. It's more comfortable and I feel better control by pushing away from me on these cuts. Where you go against the grain or with it for these first cuts is up to you. Just make sure ever cut comes out into your main pattern cut. If your chip comes away clean, you've done it right.
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[Hooker53]

Now, after you have worked all the wood out level with your first line cut, You may have some in those very acute corners that just would not come out on your cuts. There is several ways to work with this. One is to pick that Surg blade up and start working it under the wood and cut to your border line. As Bangerjim said that he don't like to use X-acto knives, I don't either unless I have to. These Surg blades are very diff. They will bend to conture and are Very sharp. I'v never cut my fingers with them and if you run out into your pattern line cut, It will stop the blade. If you have a very narrow stockmakers chisel, this would be the way to go. I'm just very use to using the surg blades.
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[Hooker53]

Now, with my surg blade, I have leveled the pocket down to the same level or close to it all the way around and guess what, no blood on my stock. This time. Ha.

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[Hooker53]

152871Now Pick up the small stock makers bottoming rasp and level the bottom of the pocket. Make it smooth.



152870

[Hooker53]

Now lets take a look at pocket depth and uniformity. insert your inlay, keeping the mark you made at the beginning on your ivory or bone like IV used here, oriented correctly. Sight it from the end and side. Does it go in so that you just barely have ivory sticking above the surface all around with just a small amount of springiness from the middle? if so, you are ready to glue and clamp. If not, get busy with your small bottoming rasp and take it down some more. It won't take much. Unlike a thicker inlay of say, exotic wood, all your depth work will have to be in the pocket.

152874

[Hooker53]

The next step is to get that inlay glues into the pocket. For generations, the argument has been, What type of glue to use for this. For years, a lot of folks used Liquid Hide Glue. There are many types of glues you could use, even in the 2 part epoxy types. If you use the latter, you need no air as catalyst and will dry o it's own. There will on the other hand, be enough are in the fibers of the wood to dry your single part, hide types. It will just take longer. I prefer to use the Old Hide type and preferable, Franklins Hide Glue. I bought a big bottle of this stuff years ago. It don'e scum over in the bottle making it hard to get glue out and is also closer to the color of your wood and finish. It's also a good glue to use if you did get just a might large on your pocket and have to bridge the gap with the glue and sanding dust. Which is why I save the sanding dust to the Orig stock when sanding it. You can mix the dust with your glue after the first glue operation has dryed and force it into the small crack and will hide nicely. The trick is never let your pocket get oversized but try as you may, it happens sometimes.

Before I apply the first inlay bonding glue to the pocket, I set the stock in front of a de-humidifier and pull all the water/moisture out I can. Just don't get it bone dry. When I apply the glue to the pocket it takes several coats because it goes deep. The stock wood sucks it in deeper. drop your inlay over in the pocket evenly and with a small clamp, ease it in. Make sure you have the inlay a little above the surfaces all around. Don't bother to wipe the excess glue off. Let it soak in. I let this set with clamp on for a day or two and before sanding down to stock level, it sets for a few weeks. As dry as you think that glue gets, if you sand it down to stock level without it setting up awhile, the inlay could come out either to high or two low from it moving while drying. Lets go on to some Exotic, thicker, easyer to do wood inlays while the ivory ones are drying.
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[BigEyeBob]

Great tutorial , not big on inlays myself but appreciate the precision and talent that is required for such work .
Kev.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

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The bad news is that while you are entitled to own or sell pre-ban ivory objects, countries signatory to the CITES treaty are supposed to ban using objects so privileged to make new ones, and I think the US implements this sometimes. I always think I was lucky to find my Spirlet revolver, for which I had to make my own hammer and trigger-guard, before someone scrapped it to make ivory grips for a modern revolver. But if they did, they couldn't admit that they hadn't been in their present form since before CITES.

It is a technical thing, and you are unlikely to run into trouble. But if you do this work for money, and a customer gets into conversation with a zealot, you might. Even a polite and apologetic close call from confiscation is enough to sour your customer relations. I would look into the vegetable ivory nut. It really is hard to tell the difference in an inlay, when the vegetable ivory nut isn't human.

[bangerjim]

There several alternatives to ivory that look and work like the real stuff.

One is a plastic resin. I have found it in rounds and squares used for pen and woodworking. Very close to the real look and feel.

Another is the nut material mentioned above. Comes in a lump but can be cut and carved just like ivory.

I have used both.


Another is old high quality piano keys! Most are celluloid, good ones are real ivory. This is the thin slabs used on the the keys and is perfect for inlay.

But today with the liberal greenies running wild, ivory and may kinds of exotic woods are under attack. Just ask Fender Guitars!

banger

[Whiterabbit]

Why don't I see bone more often? It's popular for guitar saddles now that ivory "can't" be used. I would have thought bone (cow femur, camel femur, etc) would be as popular as horn, but it is not....

[Hooker53]

Guys. Guys. I'm just calling this Ivory as in "White Inlay". As far as I know, it is indeed some type of OLD plastic or bone like Bangerjim was talking about. .

[Whiterabbit]

understood.

[Hooker53]

Ballistics in Scotland, Reqardless of the laws, there is not a power on earth, nor anyone with pockets deep enough with no more profishency then I have in doing so that could pay me to do this on a business stand point. Ha. Ha.

[skeettx]

Ok, OK, just held my tongue long enough

Inlay is when I am lazy in the house.
Outlay is when I am lazy out in the yard.
Both take years of practice to get it right.

Mike

[Hooker53]

Ha. Ha. That's a good one Mike. Now I know!!!! Wink.

Roy

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Ballistics in Scotland, Reqardless of the laws, there is not a power on earth, nor anyone with pockets deep enough with no more profishency then I have in doing so that could pay me to do this on a business stand point. Ha. Ha.

See my picture, above, for exactly the same situation. The trouble is that bone isn't normally white. Ordinary bleach, up to the strength which will dissolve it, won't change that. I'm told 36% hydrogen peroxide will, but where I am you can't get it over 12% without a license. Just imagine how hydrogen peroxide crime has fallen off through this.

If you buy camel bone on eBay or from specialist suppliers like Jantz Supply for knife handles, I think it has been treated that way. But it doesn't go very deep. It would surely do for inlaying an almost flat surface. I am fairly sure I was the first, and perhaps the only person, to import camel bone to Saudi Arabia.

[Hooker53]

Ballistics in Scotland. I have wondered where in the heck you were. Now I know. Lol. Anytime one is doing the Kind of stuff we do, there's always something out of the ordinary to work through. Ha. 99.99999 % or the time, my inlays are some type of wood. Hard white plastic of a Styren nature will do the trick after you get it in and go over it with 00000 steel wool. Wink. It's even getting hard in my area to find really good Gabonese heartwood Ebony. Most that I get has sapwood in it anymore even the high grade B.
Roy

[Baja_Traveler]

I picked up a micro-router used for musical instrument inlay with my foredom tool (that I used to use for model making). A luthier supply sells all the cool stuff for doing inlay work, as well as pre-cut shapes if you don't want to cut them yourself. Here is my first project using custom cut mother of pearl silhouettes on both sides of my 39a...

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[bangerjim]

I have used this stuff with EXCELLENT success for many lathe-turned and carved projects:

https://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/p/9/5210/Turners-Choice-Alternative-Ivory-Project-Blanks?term=ivoryresin

And here are those nuts we discussed earlier:

https://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/search?term=tonga+nuts

They and Woodcraft are excellent sources of woods and other materials to work with.

bangerjim

[Hooker53]

Banger, that's some good leads. I can see some orders coming from them in the future. Thanks for sharing.

Roy
Hooker53

[johnson1942]

i like buffalo, camel or cow bone for inlays as they can take a stain and show grain. they can be polished to a high gloss and last and last. i have a knife handle i used cow bone on and sanded real smooth. then i stained it with black leather die. then buffed to a high gloss. several people who saw it said how did you make that piece of granite fit your knife. looks like a highly polished piece of granite. made a lot of arrow heads out of bone and antler. hung them on my war shirt. mother of pearl is very strong also and a good medium for inlays. camel bone is very very dense from the weight of the camel. wire inlays look good on a gun also. did one last winter with lots of pinpoint wire inlays. you can make a very nice picture with pin point inlays on a gun stock. the sky is the limit in this form of art. just go slow and do it carefully. plan ahead. this post gave me the fever to built another stock and do some more art work on it. thanks

[Hooker53]

Hello Johnson. Sounds like you have it down. Great on some new ideas. That's why I did this thread. Baja. That's some great looking inlays. There's one thing for sure IV found out while doing these on my guns. It's hard to give them up when someone sees them and starts throwing out the offers. Ha.

Roy
Hooker53