GET INLAID

These are the pieces of shell, patterns glued on, for my next project. The large piece in the lower right-hand corner is the entire design. All the black parts will be MOP, and be cut largely from the single piece of MOP they are currently glued to. The white parts of the pattern will be cut out of green abalone.

I didn’t have anything in particular in mind for this project, so I paged through my various clipart books, and finally settled on this one. I chose it because it’s going to be a sawing challenge. Big time. The main piece of MOP will be cut out, with the green abalone dropped in, and in some pieces, the green abalone will be cut out as well and MOP dropped into it, so precision is key. Precision sawing is also what I need to work on. If I don’t get it absolutely right on this one, it’s just not going to fly. I can hear the swearing now, but at the same time, I am motivated to get it right. There are only two steps to inlay, really: sawing and routing. Any idiot can squeeze a superglue bottle, even me. So there are only two things I need to master to be an inlay artist. Just two simple things. It should be doable, right? Thus endeth the self-peptalk.

I’ve been having major wrist and hand problems for the last couple weeks, and haven’t been doing a whole lot that requires manual dexterity, so I don’t know if I’ll be working on sawing these this coming weekend or not. I see the orthopedist on Thursday.

I had left the trickiest bits for last, to saw when I was mentally fresh. I did the arm piece first, and found that the last little finger broke along a grain line when I finished it at that point. So I superglued it and set it aside, hoping for the best.

In the process of doing that, however, I managed to glue my fingers together. It took a good 5 minutes (or rather a bad 5) and the bulk of my superglue remover to get them apart again. I’m going to have to order some more. And be more careful. I suppose I could wait and see if I can use acetone straight without it eating the skin off my bones. It’s a lot cheaper than this stuff.

After I had full use of all my digits restored, I continued sawing. I had trouble with the ebony eye parts as well. The pieces were so delicate that they, too, cracked along the grain and in weak spots. I had similar problems with the maple face piece. I ended up regluing a pattern for the face and the entire arm section onto maple again.

I did 2 more of the ebony hair/eye pieces, and both of them cracked, so I did a 3rd one. This time I decided to also glue some backing paper to the ebony, operating under the theory that maybe the thin pieces would hold up if they were supported on both sides by paper. I also put a finer sawblade in the saw. I’ve been going through sawblades like crazy on this project. I don’t know if it’s the wood vs. shell or what.

That actually worked quite well, and I was thrilled when the two face pieces fit perfectly. So I started putting the pieces together, starting with the face, moving to the sun, and then moving downward. I glued as I went, and everything was going well, but gluing as I went turned out to be a fatal mistake. Because by the time I got around to the last body pieces, I realized that the alignment was off, and I had an insurmountable gap between the body scarf and the body.

I stared at it awhile, trying to figure out how to salvage it. I attempted to trace the new configuration, with a thought of cutting a new scarf piece, but that didn’t work. I took a rubbing, but couldn’t get a clear enough outline to feel confident that the new piece would fit. I knew it was pretty hopeless, but I even tried forcing the pieces closer in. I knew that was not wise, and it wasn’t, but the reality was that I wasn’t going to be able to fix it. When I broke the hand in half, I assured that was the case.

I’d spent hours on it, only to end up starting over. There was a lot of sighing and frowning at this point. I had a very few pieces that were still unglued, and I compared those to the pattern for accuracy to see if I could use them still. A couple were okay, but I decided to recut the scarf for greater accuracy. And I ended the evening regluing fresh patterns to fresh wood. I went ahead and backed the pieces that had given me trouble the first time through, having learned that helped stabilize them.

I did save this part, not for use, but for encouragement. It came together pretty well, and I think the all-wood design is going to be cool, if I can just saw accurately. Clearly, I can do it some of the time. So maybe, with more practice, I’ll eventually be able to do it all of the time. It’s a good thing I kept my day job.

Today I’ll be sawing again. Wish me luck.

Sunday I got back on the horse (the sawhorse, that is), and worked on some shell. I was alert, instead of tired like I was Friday night when I broke those 3 pieces. I was very, very careful, and tried to really look at the piece I had and determine which side would be most advantageous to cut off first, leaving greater support for the remaining piece.

I also discovered, quite by accident (as it often happens), a technique for avoiding breakage of the thin pieces. It’s a little clumsy yet and I hope to refine it, but initial results are good. I realized that the clamp was right out—I needed to be moving the piece as I cut it, which takes quite a bit of finger strength. I also figured out that my attempts to brace the piece I was sawing on both ends was actually putting pressure on the far end, more than likely contributing to the breakage. What I ended up doing was bracing the backside of the sawblade against the wood of the bench pin and sawing away from me, stopping from time to time to pull the shell closer to me so that all the already-cut section was firmly and flatly supported on the bench pin under my fingers. The only weight on the remaining piece was that of the sawing itself, and since I kept taking up the slack, it got smaller and smaller. Then I would angle the saw from the usual perpendicular to a slant as I finished the cut. I remembered that from one of my books, and it really helped. The finishing of the cut wasn’t as abrupt that way, and less prone to breakage.

Here’s another partially finished piece. I notice that the paua is a “dirtier” and heavy sawdust than the green abalone. It tends to hang around.

I took a break at this point and glued up 3 more pieces to replace the 3 I’d broken in the first round. I didn’t want to bother if the sawing went badly again, because I might have had to look into different sawblades.

I can see that even though these design lines are thinner than in the first two projects, they’re still not thin enough to allow for a perfect abutment of pieces. I will try the stencil idea Phaedrous gave me next time and see if I don’t do better. I also can see that my shaky hand drawing results in less than smooth sawing. I’m not sure what to do about that yet. Maybe I need to get one of those French curve dealies to trace around for vines and whatever else I can come up with.

Next up were the 4 flowers. They were quite the test for my sawing skills, and I’d say I scored a C-. Maybe a D+. My ability to turn inside corners by “marching in place” with the saw as I slowly turned the handle (as recommended in my books) leave much to be desired in tight corners like these flowers have between the petals, and I put some nicks and notches in places I didn’t want them. Of course, those notches were in places really hard to smooth out with a small file. The first flower I did I sawed in sections, but that can leave edges that need to be filed. The second one, as you can see in the picture below, I did in one more or less continuous cut.

I broke a couple blades cutting the second pair, mostly due to my poor cornering—the blade wasn’t moving, but by god, my hand was! But I am pleased to report that I’m now wearing out the blades before I’m breaking them in most cases. That seems like some kind of progress. MOP is harder work than the abalone and the paua; I don’t know if that’s because of its consistency, or the fact that it’s thicker than either of the other two shell types I’ve got. I guess next time I order it, I’ll try to keep it to 1 mm; I think the MOP I have is 1.5 mm. More consistency in thickness will help me at sanding time, too.
I got so focused on my cutting at one point that I forgot to stop and went right into the finger that was holding down the piece of shell. Note to self: Stop sawing when you hit meat. I think my guitar callus saved me. It broke the skin, but there was no bleeding. All I can say is, thank goodness I wasn’t using power tools, or my career as a guitarist would be over before it barely started.

I still have the 3 replacement pieces to cut, but their glue was still tacky when I was ready to finish up for the day. I don’t know if I’ll have time to work on it this week again, as I have open mic tomorrow night, and I don’t seem to do so well sawing after a long day at work; my brain is fatigued. And then I’m in San Francisco Saturday and in transit a good chunk of Sunday. So we’ll see.