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Woodworking project: clock with inlay part 2 -- finish up

This section will finish our woodworking inlay clock project.  In part 1 we cut out the pieces that make up the body of the clock, the desert scene.  The next step is to inlay some figures.  When researching the idea of nomads, I found lots of pictures of people living in the desert, using camels for transportation.  So I decided to use the camel as the symbol for the Nomads (my golf group).  After I started, I kind of wished I had come up with some other idea.  First of all, finding just the right picture was tough.  Then cutting the pieces was a real challenge.

I finally found an acceptable picture of a camel, copied it to just the right size and traced the outline onto a piece of 1/4 inch plywood.  I cut it out on the scroll saw and used my sanding station to tweak the shape.

I tried to include most of the detail that was in the original picture.  Next I used the router inlay kit as described in the plaque project to produce a template of the camel.  Since I was only making one clock, I didn't bother making a jig to hold the pieces, I simply used double sided tape to hold the template to the work piece.

The problem I had was with the shape of the cut-out.  In the first place, much of the detail was lost when making the template; the bushing simply slid over the finer details that I cut into the cut-out.  And then there was the problem with the legs.  The legs are very skinny and when I installed the outer bushing to cut the cavity, it wouldn't fit through the opening for the legs.  So I had to modify the template by making the leg wider.  When I finally got everything cut out and put together, I realized the head on the camel just didn't look right -- the snout was too short.  Although the original picture and the cut-out from the scroll saw looked good, the detail of the face didn't translate well from the cut-out to the template to the finished product.  So I scrapped that piece of wood and started over.  The second time It looked better, but not perfect, but by then I was tired and said enough is enough.  Even then I had to do a lot of fussing around to get the legs to fit into the cavity.

My advice is to choose a simple figure with not so much detail if you want to try this.  The bowling pins in the plaque project were lots easier.  The other alternative is to use a chisel and make the inlay and the cavity the old fashioned way.  It's a lot of work, but you can get exactly what you want.

Once I had the camel installed, I glued the top and bottom together.  This came out perfect.  Once the glue dried, I trimmed up and squared up the edges on the table saw.

Anyway.............. on to the pyramid.  I copied a picture of a pyramid freehand and made a template as before.

After cutting out an inlay of the pyramid, I noticed that it lacked depth.  So I decided to cut the inlay in two parts in such a way that the grain of the wood would run parallel to the bottom of the pyramid on both of the visible sides.  To do this I simply took the plywood model that I made from the drawing and cut it on the scroll saw into two pieces, and made a template for each.

Then I placed the template on a piece of cherry so that he grain of the wood ran parallel to the bottoms of the triangles.  When I fitted them into the cavity, it looked pretty good.

The last inlay is the moon.  I used the template of the bowling ball from the plaque project -- it was just the right size.  I cut the cavity for the inlay right on top of a knot in the wood.  The moon is made of some maple and really looks white against that dark background,

Now all that was left to do was to round over the edges, varnish the wood and install the clock parts.  The clock mechanism was made for a 1/4 inch board, so I used the router template I used for the picture frame in the plaque project and using a straight cutting bit with a template guide, I plowed out a hole in the back of the clock, leaving about 1/4 inch. 

I applied two coats of varnish to the front and one coat to the back.  Following the direction on the clock mechanism package made short work of installing the hardware once the varnish was dry.