Thread: Great Blue Heron

Nice job & a good choice of timbers. I think someone else has posted the same pattern a fair while back. Should be interesting to compare.

I like how you have used that stained pine, the colour and pattern are perfect for a herons feathers. Ours aren't 4 ft tall, but they are that exact colour.

Cheers

Ian

Looks great, the pine looks like blue pine that I have seen a few people from the US use. Dont think we have anything like that here.

btw, my parents neighbour who is a train driver in rural nsw says emu's do fly, especially when they get in the way of the train

Looks great, the pine looks like blue pine that I have seen a few people from the US use. Dont think we have anything like that here.

I have some in the shed
Just leave a pine log laying on the ground for a couple of weeks in the summer and you can have some too
The fungus kicks in and stains the pine really quick if it's not cut and dried right away. I think the best stuff come from standing dead trees though.

Still it's an interesting looking effect that really works for that picture.

Cheers

Ian

Yes the Pine is well suited for that art.

Looks like it was made just for feathers. good job.

You are right Alexs. The heron was posted before. I had completely forgotten. But the one up now is a different treatment of same pattern. The other,older one was sold a number of months ago and I got the urge to do a repeat.
As the first one has disappeared from the forum here is what it looked like for comparison.

very nice Bob like the gray pine.

Nice work...
This is a pattern that I would like to incorporate in a sidetable top, but obviously smaller in size and using double bevel marquetry vice intarsia. Do you have a copy of the pattern or the source? I have just recently taken instruction in using marquetry as an enhancement to certain furniture designs and I find the intarsia designs very useful, along with wood selection you have utilized.

Originally Posted by Bob H

The heron was posted before...

Wow! These are both superb pieces. I prefer the second one (the one posted first). The colours in the timbers seem to be more harmonious among themselves and with the subject. And the raindrops are a very nice touch.

I'd be interested in some more posts of your techniques.

Originally Posted by YAKI

Nice work...
This is a pattern that I would like to incorporate in a sidetable top, but obviously smaller in size and using double bevel marquetry vice intarsia. Do you have a copy of the pattern or the source? I have just recently taken instruction in using marquetry as an enhancement to certain furniture designs and I find the intarsia designs very useful, along with wood selection you have utilized.

The pattern is a Judy Gale Robert's design. They are carried here by Morley Miller Machiner in St. George Ontario. Email: [email protected]. Fax 519-448-1362.
The pattern is I-126.
Your problem will be to downsize it from the original 20.5" X 17". But I suppose a Photocopy shop could/would do it.
If you contact them ask for a catalog as well.

I'd be interested in some more posts of your techniques.[/QUOTE]

I try to post each project asap when they are finished but if there is anything in particular you are interested in? Subject or Method.

My computer crashed a few weeks ago and some of the earlier posting pictures disappeared because of it. They had been there a long time anyway but always willing to share.

"I'd be interested in some more posts of your techniques."
"...anything in particular...?"

Er...all of 'em Just some progress shots of your setup, tools, how you handle critical junctures. I've done some very simple inlaying on box lids, and would interested in tryring out some slightly more complicated pattern, like a single tapered curve that stops at a point somewhere within the lid.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

But here’s the thousand words instead ( I’m long winded) J



You wouldn’t want to see my setup. Or rather if I were to show you my setup I would have to clean it up. And that would make it a none working shop. In which case I couldn’t show you any kind of methods, techniques and certainly there would be no progress shots as there would be no progress. If I ever cleaned up my shop I would never be able to work in it again for fear of disturbing something.

On the other hand I could if you like, show you some close-ups of my tools and what not where the background is blurred and won’t embarrass me.





The tools I use are pretty basic. A scroll saw of course. Then there are various other power tools all supporting the S.S. table saw, bandsaw, belt sander. But the main tool(s) is the flex shaft into which I chuck a variety of revolving sanding devices. The principle ones being rigid sanding drums of varying dimensions. I supplement this with a “Dremel” type hi-speed rotary tool for finer work.

These “sanding” devices are my main weapons for shaping and contouring. I hold the piece of wood to be shaped in my right hand and the flex shaft handle in my left. Moving either or both I remove wood. A lot or a little, to the depth and shape I am looking for.

I chose this method as opposed to a fixed, revolving sanding drum because I can see all surfaces and apply pressure where needed as I go about the surface of the piece. Pressure is controlled by how much force my two hands bring to bear working together.



Accurate cutting and a good imagination for visualizing depth and contours .



I hope I understand your question about critical junctures.

Stack cutting is one method I use. Coupled with that might be the slight tilting of the saw table in order to have an interior cut slide in snuggly. Undercut or overcut as you prefer.

If I do not use either of those methods I often will take 2 adjacent pieces, hold them firmly together and run a “fine” saw kerf down the join. I generally can get a good fit this way. Sufficient for the majority of Intarsia work where a beveled edge often masks less than perfect cutting/fitting. But for me it is a method of reducing or eliminating the beveled edge as well as achieving an accurate fit. On the heron’s head I have used both techniques. One danger here is over use and removal of too much wood will change the overall size and could influence the pattern somewhat.



If I were to attempt a single tapered curve, entirely within the lid I would use Stack cutting, a slight over cutting angle for the inlay piece of perhaps 1 or 2 degrees (depending up on thickness of wood and blade size.)

And I would ensure the entry hole was drilled with the smallest available bit in an inconspicuous spot (corner?) and the hole tending to be drilled slightly more into the receiving wood and not the inlay. The slightly wider inlay will help to mask the hole.



If anything I have said is not too clear. I could provide a picture or two of a specific bit but too many photos would clutter the forum.

Hope I understood the question correctly and that this helps.