I recently posted a thread with pictures of my spiral stair treads.
My next trick is to let my two grandsons imprint a tread. Sort of like letting your kids make handprints in the concrete. here's the procedure:
-- Using black finger paint, get handprints from my two grandsons (1 and 3 years old)
-- Scan to jpgs
-- Add their names and use a laser engraver to engrave the handprints into the oak treads as deep as I can. I'm told over the laser group that engraving oak is difficult because of the grain. As long as I get everything below 'grade', I will be happy. I might even hollow some bits out with a chisel.
-- fill with black epoxy and sand smooth
My plan is to do this on a spare tread so that some owner down the road doesn't have to figure out how to build a new tread. Also, my daughter and son-in-law might want to have the memento.
I thought about doing all this as some sort of router inlay but hey, I have access to two 100W lasers so why not?
I will post pictures unless I just catch the wood on fire. (edit: if I catch the wood on fire I will definately post pictures )