End grain inlay?

[David Ragan]

Has anyone ever done this?

Any advice?

As Always, Thanks

[Don Orr]

Are you asking about inlaying a piece of endgrain wood into a flatgrain piece or inlaying into endgrain? I don't do inlay but it might help to explain what you are trying to accomplish. I'd be interested in knowing just because I like learning about all kinds of different things.

[Bill Houghton]

I've never done it. The problem, of course, would be differential wood movement - not even using something stable as a substrate (e.g., MDF or other fine-chewed termite barf) would avoid that issue. But it's been done, often, so there must be solutions. Traditionally, slices of laburnum and other branches have been used for inlay (the pattern is called "oyster" or "oyster veneering"):
box4.jpg
(credit to Bridget Powers Design, http://bridgetpowersdesign.com/boxes4.html). I don't know how open she is to discussing her techniques, but she's got a contact link on her main page: http://bridgetpowersdesign.com/

Some info:
http://www.wood-database.com/laburnum/
Googling "how to do laburnum oyster inlay" got me almost 18,000 results, but the first few were NOT how to do links. Wikipedia wasn't much helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oystering

[David Ragan]

I'm considering string-inlay into a composite of endgrain; just about 3.5"square.

Had not considered the movement issue of the substrate.

the stringing would be conventional material.