Building a Federal Style Table with Veneering and Inlay- Part 2

[Mike Allen1010]

Part two of the federal table build – string inlay.

Laying out the stringing.





Cutting the grooves using a Dremel with fence and .040” wide spiral bit from LV. In the past I done this by hand with a string inlay cutter, which is a little more confidence inspiring for me. Given I had 10 legs surfaces I’m adding the string inlay on (3 for the front to legs and 2 for the back legs), the Dremel provided better efficiency.



Here’s a good example of why I’m more comfortable with the hand method– much easier to see the limit line and avoid going past it. Oh well, just another mistake to fix!



Using a .040” wide chisel (an essential part of the string inlay kit – also from LV) to square top edges of vertical inlay grooves.



Miter the stringing with 45° block and chisel.




Tiny little glue syringe for applying glue to the grooves. The first couple times I did this, I tried to use a toothpick – definitely penny wise and pound foolish.




One of the biggest lessons I learned from my first attempts at string inlay; it’s super important to thickness the stringing to fit the groove as closely as possible. I’m an impatient, seat-of-the-pants woodworker and my tendency is to rely on hands/eyes to get things to fit and not fuss too much with precision measurement. Stringing thickness is an area where that is a bad plan!

When I first tried stringing, I didn’t have a thicknessing tool and just try to wing it with a block plane and sandpaper. Resulted in two highly undesirable outcomes;

A) The stringing is too thin, which means when glued in the groove the stringing is uneven width with gaps.

B) The alternative is worse; when stringing is too thick it won’t reach the bottom of the groove and when scraped it flush there are inevitably gaps where no stringing was left in the groove – I hate when that happens!

I’m certainly no expert, but this picture shows what I shoot for – a finger pressure fit that pushes the stringing to the bottom of the groove with uniform squeeze out. Even using the thicknessing, not all my stringing fitstightly. I’m hoping shellac finish will help fill the gaps.

[Mike Allen1010]

Here are the legs with most of the stringing glued in.




Paring/scraping the stringing flush with the leg. Check the direction of the grain in the stringing to avoid paring too aggressively with a chisel and letting the stringing fracture below the surface of the leg. For me, a sharp card scraper is the best way to go.








Next is the stringing arc at the top of the leg. I don’t really have a great way to do this. Most of it was outlined using the inlay cutter with the compass like pivot point. I had two problems with this approach: it requires an understanding of geometry waaay over my head to get the pivot point in the dead center/correct radius so the arc meets the upper most point of the vertical lines. Secondly, if you can figure out where the pivot point is, you need to use some type of protective/acrylic base for the pivot point so it doesn’t mar the legs surface. I was maybe able to find the pivot point for the inlay cutter directly on the surface of the leg, but trying to superimpose the protective base over that pivot point was a train wreck. I ended up using a template of the appropriate radius to draw the line in and cut it with an X-Acto. Again the narrow inlay chisel is necessary.







You can use the radius template to bend the stringing. Certainly not an elegant method but results were good enough for me.

[Mike Allen1010]

Sawing the border for the cuffs on the bottom of the legs: you need to keep track of which faces are straight and which are beveled and use the appropriate layout tool (square vs. bevel gauge) to reference off each. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get layout for any of the legs right on the first try.



I’m running out of steam so less talk and more pics: 1/8” thick wenge for cuffs. Electric router to recess the surface.










Start with gluing on the back/least visible cuff and pare flat. Next glue on sides so they overlap the back. The front piece overlaps both sides – no visible joints on show surface.

[Mike Allen1010]

Here are pics of banding above the cuffs.

[Mike Allen1010]

Using gouges to cut out the 150 separate Holly bellflower inlay pieces.










I’m already regretting this level of tedious detail. Next step will be to trace the pattern on legs and glue the individual pieces to the legs (with a tiny toothpick sized bit of glue) so I have a better chance of keeping them in place while I use an X-Acto to outline each piece as a guide to create the appropriate recess with a dremel and carving tools.

Since the inlay pieces aren’t identical, I’ll have to figure out some way to keep track of which pieces go where – which I’m sure it’s going to be next to impossible!

To give my eyes a break from the detail work, I need to re-saw some mahogany veneer and glue it to the apron. I want to make sure each piece of veneer ends where it will be covered by a leg.





I’ll post more pics as I make progress. Seems like this is gonna be a long project and I hope the Lord grants me patience so I don’t get in a hurry and hash it up – probably 50/50 chance.

Thanks for looking,

Mike

[Brian Holcombe]

Very nice!!

[Phil Mueller]

Looking fantastic, Mike!

[Stewie Simpson]

Excellent work Mike.

[Christopher Charles]

Looks good to me so far. Good luck with the patience!

[Prashun Patel]

Top notch. Having never done anything on this level I ask, what do you find to be the hardest part of the process?

[Mike Allen1010]

Thanks guys I really appreciate the feedback.

I also have to say you guys have some of the coolest icons (or they called avatars?) Here on the creek!

Top notch. Having never done anything on this level I ask, what do you find to be the hardest part of the process?

Prashun, the two biggest challenges for me with string inlay are:




1) Getting the thickness of your stringing to match the width of the groove it will be inlaid into. Tolerances are tight and the differences between too thick or too thin are very small. I suggest cutting a practice groove and thickness each piece of stringing individually, checking to make sure you've got a good fit. A pass or two with a block of sandpaper focused on the bottom edge of the stringing can help.


Although thicknessing the stringing is a fairly monotonous task, it's worth it to get a good fit because, given the time you're putting into the piece overall, there's nothing worse than finally scraping the stringing flush and seeing and on even with, or worse yet gaps. It's kinda like the "payoff" you get with final planing of dovetails - you finally get a chance to see what the fit/finished work looks like.




2) Cutting the grooves for curved stringing. You're always cutting an arc that needs to begin and end in a very precise spot so that it flows into the adjacent pieces of stringing. I try to do this by hand with a stringing cutter with a pivot point (like a compass). Finding the right pivot point for the arc is always difficult for me. I'm sure there is some geometry formula that could calculate this, but I don't know what it is.


The additional headache is once you find the pivot point, you have to put some protective material exactly on the spot so the compass point on the cutter doesn't mar the surface. In a perfect world, you would cut the arcs first and the pivot point would fall on a waste area that will be removed for the straight stringing. With some designs, that's just not possible.


Keeping the tiny knife edges on a .040" wide cutter sharp and at the same height is a challenge. I try and use a Japanese feather edge file (intended to sharpen Japanese saws), but that leaves a fairly rough edge. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions about a knife edge slip stone or equivalent that might be better for sharpening the inside edges of these cutting spurs? I guess I could just reshape a slip stone with some kind of abrasives, but I've never tried that. I would appreciate any advice or suggestions.


I'm certainly no expert, but I would say overall the challenge with stringing, banding and especially the Bellflower's is there really small! It's hard on the eyes and requires steady hands. For me neither of these are as good as they used to be.


I try and compensate by acknowledging I'm going to make lots of mistakes, everything's not going to fit right and I have to be okay with that.


I would encourage you to give it a try, it's not really as hard as it looks.


All the best Mike

[Prashun Patel]

Can't you just fill the grooves with tinted epoxy? Forget the stringing!

Seriously, I would have thought (as with dovetails) once glued, the stringing would slightly expand or final smoothing would cause microgaps to miraculously disappear.

[Chuck Hart]

I wish I had the skills to do something like that

[Mike Allen1010]

Can't you just fill the grooves with tinted epoxy? Forget the stringing!

Seriously, I would have thought (as with dovetails) once glued, the stringing would slightly expand or final smoothing would cause microgaps to miraculously disappear.

Prashun,

My limited experience is, unfortunately the stringing doesn't seem to expand that much when it comes in contact with the glue. That may be because the stringing is inserted "on edge", so to fill the groove it needs to expand across its thickness, versus across the witdh. I'm not sure if that makes a difference.


One thing I haven't done yet, but will try next time is scraping the stringing so it's almost flush with the surface while the glue still wet, and then sand the last bit of stringing flush. My hope is the sawdust from sanding may help fill any gaps. I'll let you know how it works.


Best, Mike