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Inlay Woodworking Project

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Inlay Woodworking Project

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Inlay Clock

Treasure Box

Quilt Hanger

End Table

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Create a template for making the inlay

Here we provide instruction on how to plan the woodworking inlay project and use the special inlay tool to complete it.

The bowling team that I sponsor won first place in the league, so I thought it was the perfect occasion to use my woodworking skills to make something for the guys. But it would have to be something special coming from a wood worker, so I decided to use an inlay to make it special and unique.

The first part of the plan was to use a web search engine to find a few pictures that were simple enough to use. I decided on using part of a picture that showed some pins being mowed down by a bowling ball. I used a copier to make the figures big enough to look good on the project and got started.

Now I need to make a template. I traced one of the pins onto a piece of quarter inch plywood using carbon paper and cut it out using a scroll saw. With a bit of sanding I now had a model of the pin I wanted to insert into the plaque.

Next I made a crude jig to hold the plaque while I cut out the inlay. I simply took a piece of scrap 3/4 plywood that was about 8 1/2 inches wide and about a foot long and sawed out a slot in the middle plenty wide enough to hold the plaque I was making. In fact I actually made it a bit bigger than I needed, but managed to make it work. I screwed a piece of scrap wood to the bottom of the jig to hold the jig in a vice.

To lay out my template, I first found the centerline of a blank plaque and placed it in the jig. Now I transferred the centerline of the plaque onto the jig.

Now I tacked a piece of quarter inch plywood on top of it using 1/2 inch brads, lining up the left side of the plywood with the left side of the jig, and the top of the plywood with the top of the slot. Notice, using needle nose pliers to hold the brad saves your fingers.

Now again using the picture of the pins and bowling ball, I traced the pins and ball onto the plywood exactly in the position they should be on the plaque, lining up the center of the picture with the centerline on the fixture. This plywood would become the template.

Using 1/2 inch brads I tacked the pin that I had cut out earlier on top of the tracing of one of the pins. Then I tacked two strips of 1/4 inch plywood at the sides of the pin cut-out. The purpose of the strips was to create a surface for the router to ride on.

Now we use the tool that makes this all possible, the brass inlay kit for your router. It is composed of a brass bushing and a ring that fits on the bushing to create a bigger bushing, a 1/8 inch straight cutting router bit. The brass bushing fits in the base of a Porter Cable router. Since I don't have a Porter Cable, I had to purchase a universal base to put on my plunge router. Make sure you use a plunge router for this.

I set the depth of the router for a tad more than 1/4 of an inch, took the plywood off the jig and tacked it to a piece of scrap wood. The scrap wood will prevent the router from "blowing out" the back of the template. With the brass bushing installed (without the ring) in the router and using the the 1/8 inch bit, I placed the bushing against the pin cut-out and plunged the router bit through the plywood. Then moving the router counterclockwise, I cut around the pin. This produces a template for making both the inlay and the insert. I took the pin model and tacked it onto the plywood in the location that I wanted to cut out another pin and repeated the process. I used a marker to label the template and remind myself how to use it.

Finally, I repeated the whole process to make a template to cut the bowling ball.

In the next step you will see how to cut out the inlays and the inserts

[Step 1: make a template][Step 2: cut pieces][Step 3: finish]