Thread: WIP australiana

just wondering, in each picture you've shown, are all the pieces you have assembled stuck down to anything?? do you use double sided tape or similar, or just masking tape across the backs to hold all together as you go?

I would love to see a detailed description of the techniques you are using for both cutting, sanding and assembly (cause I'm just starting down the intarsia/inlay path and could really use an insight into the cool 'tricks' to get it all looking that damn good!)

awesome stuff!!!!

Ian (Timbernut)

giday ian good to see youre getting into intarsia alltho im far from an expert , the few tricks i have learned mainly came from judy gale roberts book ,easy to make inlay wood projects . the pieces that have been finished have been stuck to scrap pieces of laminex or similar material which is then stuck on to the background timber with sikaflex or something that allowas the back ground wood to move .i use two pak glu to stick pieces onto backing as its got a thick consistency and takes 12 hours to set .i do a lot of double cutting using double sided carpet tape to join pieces together for the the cut , its great stuff 2 inches wide and a good bond, as last thing you want is pieces moving when you makin the cut . as for sanding its still a grind no matter what youve got or what you do ,bobbin sander and big boy main tools there also just got a pnuematic sander for doin the finish sanding on all the pieces .tried few differant finishes and found satin estapol in a spray can easiest to use . oil is a better finish but takes too long and a spray gun just blows all the pieces all over the shed . hope this has been of some use to you and if if you do come across any other info post it as im still a learner too

well the chisle is very realistic, but i cant tell why or wear it fits into a beutifull piece of intarsia like this example

Mong, if you look in the scroll saw section, find "Lin" she's the expert in intarsia!
She's posted a lot of pictures and also talks about how it's done.

Juvy

hey keju, had a look at lins work its a fair bit differant to what i do, she cuts everything out of one piece of wood and then colours it . i think she called it segmentation wheras stuff i do is using the natural colour of the wood which is commonly known as intarsia , but dont wanna go into that as its been done to death recently. pity she doesnt come here anymore.

sorry... my mistake..... for some reason I thought she did intarsia too. I do know the difference
I know segmentation takes a lot more shaping, more fine tuning, but the basic principle is the same..... shaping pieces of wood and glueing them back together, so I'm still sure you could learn a bit from her.

Really.... I think it's a great idea to start with segmentation and work up to intarsia.

Juvy

It has been said befor WOW !!! that is great work.

love to see that finished and know how many hours total time you spent on it

Progressing nicely Tom. Looks fantastic

made a bit of progress over last few weeks, grass is birdseye gum, snake ancient mahogany and miva mahogany leaves are robinia or black locust which is a introduced deciduios species .ive been told that they used it in boatbuilding as dowels as its very hard which surprised me as most dedidious ive used is very soft .branches are liquid amber which i first glued onto laminex with laminex glue before cutting other wise they would have just kept breaking.sky is veneerd blackheart sassafras and background hill king billy pine .one problem im now facing is whether to glue the pieces strait onto the background wood before or after finish is applied.will be a real pain to try to sand all those little bits on there but on the other hand could run into trouble trying to get them to stick to the finished surface ??

Outstanding work, looking forward to more pics
Well done

Hey Mong very nice look forward to more photos

Dennis

wow looking excellent, still love the timber in the leaves of the tree on right

this is a piece of fine intarsia and i think it proves the point, that you can use up all your small pieces of wood
in a project like this, intarsia can be an inexpensive art.

finished couple months ago but been away .4 to 5 hundred hours 450 pieces of wood ,finish is wattly estapol satin in a spray can , would have prefered oil but too many pieces,next one will be smaller .