Bill Posted January 28, 2003 Posted January 28, 2003 Here's a question for you experienced inlay folks and stainers. I was in the home shop today working on a small project for the house. Picture this, I have a piece of pine 3/4 of an inch thick, it's about 10 x 40 inches in size. I routed a groove, apx. 1 inch in from each edge. The groove was about 1/2 inch in width. It was about 3/8 inches deep. In other words I created a rectangle inside the rectangular shape of the of the whole wood. I was trying to have fun and do an inlay, something I have no experience at. I cut some mahogany to fit into my routed areas. I really took my time with this, as I have attempted the experiment before and, of course rushed and screwed up! Each piece of mahogany was painstakenly cut just a hair over-size and then I hand sanded the pieces to fit very tightly. Tight enough so I had to still tap it all togather with a mallet. It was Very tight, but fit. I sanded it all down and was quite pleased with my attempt. I was going to just use polyu or varnish on the project and then it was decided (not by me) to used a light stain on the whole project. Working in the Poor mans wood(pine), I have found that using a pre-stain in the past in not a bad idea. It helps resolve some of those blotches giving every project a 1960's cheap waterbed look!! (Some of you know what I mean)! Anyway, I put the prestain on as prescribed, wiped off the excess, waited about 30 minutes and went to staining. Then I noticed the problem. I now have a gap big enough to fit a playing card into, all around my nifty inlay. I'm not a chemist, and evidently, I'm not an inlay artist as of yet. Any clues on the reaction (or possible excuses) I'll have to use on this? I'm getting tired of telling everyone I "like" the antique look when in fact I'm trying to get a bit more honed at some of the processes.. Not to slam any product, but it was a minwax oil prestain, used with a minwax oil stain. I'm not totally P'O'ed, it's part of a small household project and I can always redo it. Fact is, with a few coats of varnish to fill it in, it will probably look "ok"! I just get kinda upset thinking it could be a boat part, then I'd really be perturbed! Ps. I'm enclosing a graphic illustration (top view) of my board, in case I lost anyone on what it "Was" supposed to look like.... Thanks for any input! Bill [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin] Quote
Russ Sylvester Posted January 28, 2003 Posted January 28, 2003 I'm gonna go way out on a limb here. I'm going to assume that you cut the inlay strips right after you cut the grooves in the pine. Being that it is winter in Maine where the humidity is somewhere in the single digits probably, could the pine or the inlay wood have shrunk a little from drying?? An experiment would have been to mist the wood a little with some water and see if it took up again. Sort of like a wooden boat taking up. Just an idea. Quote
T. Nelson Surbrook Posted January 28, 2003 Posted January 28, 2003 I think Russ may be on the right track with this. You are using two differant woods that will absorb and shed moisture at differant rates. You may be able to avoid this by using the prestain before fitting the pieces together. As Russ said this requires experimenting. Good luck Quote
Bill Posted January 28, 2003 Author Posted January 28, 2003 Ya, now that I think of it you guys are probably right. I just wasn't using my head I guess. I also did a few loads of laundry down there while I was working (Martha Stewart recommends this while boatbuilding...) I imagine the heat and humidity fluxuated quite a bit during the whole process. The pine was from HD and the Mahogany was some salvage stuff I picked up. I thought they were both pretty dry (and may have been) but the moisture from the washer and dryer probably fattened things up during the building process and a few hours later the whole chemistry changed once my jeans were done. Ah well, live and learn... Thanks guys.... Bill Quote
Guest Anonymous Posted January 28, 2003 Posted January 28, 2003 Bill, Unfortunately, I think you will see movement problems with this piece forever. I don't know the expansion coefficients of the 2 wood types you used, but isn't mahogany a pretty stable wood? You have a cross grain situation where the long grain of the mahogany is at 90 degrees to the long grain of the pine. Every time there is a change in temperature and/or humidity you'll get some movement. That mahogany will suddenly stick out past the end of the pine at the edge of the table. I inlayed some purpleheart into the top of my solid Alaskan Birch desk I build. The top shrunk when I took it to the office and the purpleheart plowed a 1/4 inch notch in the birch where the crossgrain inlay ended. As others have said, you may be able to minimize the affects by pre-treating both types of wood, but you're going to get movement in thiscross grain situation. --John M. Quote
Levi Posted January 28, 2003 Posted January 28, 2003 I have done basically the same project as you many times in my work and found that two woods, not of the same tree, always will react in some manner when mating them together in an inlay. Some one on the Forum mentioned that this project might suffer future movement due to this and he is SO right....but all is not lost...Have you ever done much laminating of woods and using different woods in the project? In the job of laminating you will always use a superior glue (epoxy?), clamp it up well and patiently wait for cure before unclamping. Inlay work needs similar gluing, clamping and patience I have found, because you are mating different woods of different content together into one beautiful piece. One major mistake is to wet the woods with stain before gluing up. Let everything be natural and dry; sand to fit; glue up and clean off glue; clamp and let cure; sand entire project and then do staining. Epoxy, if not starved out of the joints, will keep the pieces in place for the rest of our lives and if you skim coat the entire finished & stained project with gloss epoxy and finish with varnish of your choice it should be a piece for your grandchildren to fight over? Hard to describe these things but I hope you get the idea and I am sure the piece you made can be touched up and made to please with some work because you seem to know about wood working. And if you built a boat or two you have come across many problems and licked them? Bill, your piece looks great as is from your post and I think you will become an in-lay artist if you just keep at it. It can be frustrating but lots of fun. Quote
Bill Posted January 28, 2003 Author Posted January 28, 2003 Thanks again folks for all the nice input... I will be trying more methods out to see just what works out best. I did use some cheap ol' wood glue on the previous piece but I will be trying the epoxy as a glue for a few pieces. I have glued up 5-6 laminations with epoxy before and never did have any problem with them. I have a "test" hatch cover in the shop right now that is pine, but its epoxied and varnished all to heck, my idea is to put an inlay into the cover...then epoxy and varnish again. If I manage to pull it off it should look pretty good (and down-right fancy) Then I'm going to toss it out on my porch for a few weeks in the snow/cold/rain and see what happens. If all works well, I'll transfer my method over to the actual building of my Forward and Cabin Hatches. Right now I'm doing some varnishing in the shop so I won't be raising any sawdust for a couple of days... Thank again for the replies... Bill Quote
Charlie Jones Posted January 29, 2003 Posted January 29, 2003 A tip for making it easier to fit the strips. If you will cut the strips with a very slight taper or undercut and make them just a tad wider than the slot, you can wedge them down into the slot, then sand away the tops so they are flush. Glue them before you sand, then all will fit very tightly and it won't be such a finicky job fitting them. Quote
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