GET INLAID

I’b sick, wid a stuffed node and a head code. It’s raining and code out. Naturally, I thought it was a good idea to go out in the garage Sunday and work on my project. I was tired of sitting and reading, as I’d been doing most of the day. Once I’d put on another shirt and a jacket, I was fine, but I found that my safety goggles fogged up from my breathing. But I can’t go goggle-less; a one-eyed girl cannot take additional chances.

When we last left this gripping saga, I’d glued my design to a piece of maple and left them alone to dry. So I scribed around them, this time with an Exacto knife, and that went pretty well. I’d read of a technique wherein you fill the scribed line with chalk, but that didn’t work so well on the light wood. So I followed up with plain pencil lead. You can see the chalk (barely) in the upper left of the design, the pencil on the right.

I thought it might be easier on me if I colored in all the space to be routed so I could see it better. I also found my light wasn’t adequate when my big mitts were blocking it. I’ve ordered a swing-arm magnifying lamp for out there that should be in Monday, and that should help.

Here’s the original soft wood piece I was going to do, and I decided to take the router to it just for practice. Larry was right; real wood is easier to rout accurately.

Before I started routing, I remembered that there was another benefit to the aquarium pump I’d bought. The router base had a tube to attach the pump to blow lightly and keep your field of vision clear. It’s not enough to blow all the routed crud out of the way, but at least you can see. I’d stop from time to time to vacuum it all out of the way. But it was slick.

I decided to outline the design first on the practice piece using the smaller bit. It went pretty well, and then I debated whether to finish it, which would involve swapping out bits and adjusting the router depth 3 more times, or to go ahead and move on to the maple with the bit I had and save myself 2 changes. I decided that was the way to go.

I outlined it on the maple, first, and it was different on the harder wood yet, but again, nice because it wasn’t so sloppy. The wood that is; I’m still not the world’s greatest router.

Here you can see it mostly routed. A nice clean cavity—none of that 2 level stuff I had trouble with last time, despite a bit change and router depth adjustment after I’d outlined it with the smaller bit. I used the green abalone to gauge it, since it’s the thinner of the 2 shell types. The sanding will take care of the difference.

And now we have the parade of screw-ups. I knew as I did it I’d fucked it up because I didn’t stop moving the router when I stopped seeing where it was going. Note to self: Using The Force is NOT going to cut it.

This one the router just got away from me. Something about that corner, I guess, as both screw-ups are across from each other. I’ll have to figure out how to patch those, maybe the same way I did it the last time. We’ll see. Better to not make the mistakes than to try to fix them; no fix will be as good as not screwing up in the first place.

I got it all routed and went to dry-fit the pieces. Another note to self: Don’t force the pieces in. I broke this one.

Piece 3 was sticking up, so I pulled it out and did some more routing. I’m not sure why that’s the case, when I traced around these pieces to begin with. I’m not sure where the breakdown in accuracy is. Of course, it could be multiple places.

Here it is, all dry-fit. It’s always a bummer to get them into place and then have to yank them out, but that’s the way it works.

So I put superglue in the cavity, and started to put the pieces in. I noticed by the time I started futzing with the 2nd piece, the maple had soaked up the superglue. Oops. So I put more in the cavity.

I’m not quite sure how I did it the first time, but the first few pieces required some finessing, which meant I ended up with more superglue on me than I would’ve liked. This one stuck to my finger and took a considerable amount of effort and superglue remover to get off. Care to guess which piece this is? That’s right, #2. At least it’s consistent. “Bonds skin instantly, motherfucker! Weren’t you paying attention???” thought I.

Here it is, glued and ready to cure overnight. I hope it’s not too cold. It’s currently 33 degrees, 2 degrees above our expected low. I really thought moving to the desert, I’d have seen the last of freezing temperatures. My outdoor aloe plants, bent and broken, are a sad denial of that thought.

First aid for the inlayer’s workbench.

Next will be sanding, and, this time, finishing. Stay tuned!