Dove Inlay

Sorry for the blurriness on some of these photos. Still learning the camera. This was my attempt to inlay a mother of pearl dove onto a piece of Mahogany. I am just starting to learn, having only done one before this and it was a circle at that. I have been getting my inlay precut from Andy at http://www.luthiersupply.com/. Great selection and the quality is superb. I have been very happy with the pieces I have recieved so far.  Above is a picture off of his web site of the dove.  It is quite small and quite thin.  The 1/16th Dremel Routing bit I had was too large for it.  I started by clamping a blank piece of mahogany in my vice.

I start by applying white out over the area I want to route.  The purpose is so when you scribe the shape it will remove the paint and leave a visible outline of your inlay piece.  Several people suggest cementing your inlay to the board while you scribe.  I just use a glue stick and hold it in place.  Much easier to remove that way (IMHO). 

I usually use a scribe (metal bar with a very pointy end), and then go over it with a razor blade to deepen the groove.  In my opinion this part is Extremely Important.  Take your time and do it accurately.  Just doing this small inlay took me a good 15 - 20 minutes to scribe.

I then followed the outline using a 1/4 inch chisel, lightly at first in case I made a mistake. I have a 30 oz rubber mallet that really helps "make a good impression". I am not concerned with removing wood at this point, only providing a nice outline.

Here you can plainly see the outline of the body of the dove.  Now I take my 1mm (yes 1 mm) gouge and starting in the middle working out I began to gouge and remove wood.  I start lightly at first, then a little deeper, loosening the middle by running the razor blade over the outline occasionally.

You can see I have removed the wood with the gouge.  This is where I will start to see if the inlay fits.  I don't force it but apply light pressure.  Where it doesn't fit I either use a razor blade or gouge to remove just a little bit more wood.  Mahogny is fairly soft so you need to be careful.  Work in small increments and try fitting the inlay after each modification.  Patience...

I have purchased a set of sanding heads for the dremmel.  These are metal poles at varying widths that are diamond encrusted.  I have them at grits of 150, 220, 440 and 660.  The whole set was very inexpensive and it has saved me an enormous amount of time.  When I have a rough fit I LIGHTLY run the sanding tool through the outline several times being careful not to really enlarge the route but make it smooth and tight fitting.  These sanding tools were not made for routing or removing more than a fine layer of wood at a time.  If you apply too much pressure they will break.

Here is the dove in the route.  I got a pretty tight fit, but sometimes you have to repair parts.  With Ebony there is a trick where you can take ebony saw dust, mix it in with your epoxy and it covers it up nicely.  I know it doesn't work with maple and doubt it will with Mahogany.  Once I get there I will update the blog to show the glueing process and the sanding...

OK, I was able to complete and sand the Dove down. While I thought it was a good first try, definately not ready for primetime, but that's why I am practicing.  You can cleary see some spacing issues.  I am thinking this was due more to the inscribing process.  When I would run my scribe on the thin parts they were quite flexible and moved.  Then when I tried to fit the piece I widened it to accomodate.  The trick with mahogany was not really succesful either.  I can clearly see the clue lines.  I think I could use this trick but only for minimal areas...

All in all a fun project that I learned a lot from.  I do have another Dove Inlay so I will try again.  Perhaps in Maple :-o