Solid Cherry Bench with Redwood Inlay
 

I haven't posted in a long time, just have been extremely busy starting a new business. Here's a picture of a bench I made for my wife. The seat has Redwood inlay. Its amazing what this MechMate will do. The more I use it, the more I like it.

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Great work! How much of the work was done on the MM?

Hey James,

All the inlay work on the seat was done with the MM. The outside profile of the legs, the heart shape on the legs, and the bottom curve on the stretcher was also done on the MM.

Very Nice!

Nicely done Greg!

Very very nice...I like it

Hi Greg, nice work and good to hear from you!

Hey Greg, nice bench and glad to see you still around - are you still farming?

Care to give us a run down on how you did the inlay?

Thanks guys for the comments.

Alan, yea, still farming, but have started a one man woodworking business. Custom doors and fine furniture. Still in the early stages.

The inlay work was done using Vcarve Pro. The following Vectric forum link has the instructions and how its done. Its very easy and the results can be stunning. Vcarve Pro has an Inlay function, but I don't use it. You'll get better results by following the method on the Vectric forum.

http://www.vectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=564

The pattern was another story. I took a digital photo of the tile work, then vectorized it in Rhino. Your tracing over the pattern in the CAD program. Once the image is "vectorized", just import into Vcarve Pro and follow the instructions for producing inlays. Very fun stuff.

Greg,

Good to hear you are still at it.

The bench is great. Send us more photos!

Hey Nils,

Next time I have my photo stuff (clean finish room, backdrop, etc.) setup, I'll take a couple more pic's. This one is for a business brochure I'm putting together.

Yep, still at it, and still having fun. Too many interesting things to do just for one life. :)

More Pictures
 

Nils,

Made another bench for a wedding present. Its Mahogany with Red Oak inlay. Just trying different combinations to hone design skills. Some look good, some don't.

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That is really gorgeous. The inlaid text looks especially good. Great photos too, btw.

Thanks Jeff,

The text is actually just a carving. With the end grains exposed, it takes much more finish and you'll get a much darker color. I really like the effect, but its strange, because it doesn't happen on all woods.

Its very simple to take good pictures. The back ground is a $40 paper (+ shipping) backdrop from a photo shop in New York city. The lighting are those $40 (approx.) flood lights you can buy from any hardware store. The camera is a cheap digital that my wife bought me for hunting trips. Nothing fancy. Fine Wood Working magazine just had an excellent article on taking pictures of furniture. Makes a big difference.

Here is a youtube video shoing how the inlays are done : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkpUoxWybzM

Yep, that's how its done.

I noticed that their inlay was 3/8 inch thick. As you do more and more of these inlays, you'll get better and better. The thinner you can make the inlay and pocket, the better. It just saves time, material, etc.

Also, with a thick inlay, you can have movement in the wood from season to season. On my bench, the inlay was 0.100 inch thick. It gets tricky making thin material like wood lay flat. Without a vacuum table, I use double sided carpet tape.