Replies

1. 
   mrbird90 | May 26, 2009 03:51am | #1

   On a small piece I have sanded everything flush than put shellac on the inlay and then finished the rest of the board. Filler, stain and then shellac.

2. 
   hdgis1 | May 26, 2009 04:02am | #2

   Im darn gla you asked that question cause I cant for the life of me figure out how to do it with the banding already in there! I can tell you shellac as a sealer over inlay does nothing! Especially if filler is tinted. I ended up making a small scraper to scrape all of the inlay!

   Chris

   Maybe Mr. Millard will step in here and let us know the secret!

   
   

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   Edited 5/25/2009 9:03 pm ET by hdgis1

1. 
   cwalvoord | May 26, 2009 04:34am | #4

   I have been thinking about this same issue for a walnut table I am working on with stringing, banding and inlay of several different species. I would really like to dye the walnut with a water based dye to even out the color a little and I was planning on sealing the inlays, etc. with shellac. Hdgis1, could you tell us what exactly you tried and where it failed?Thanks much.
   Chris

3. 
   SteveSchoene | May 26, 2009 04:22am | #3

   It's very hard to sand inlay flush without sanding through stain, very hard.  One approach is to color the mahogany with a chemical stain--potassium chromate is one, albeit a poisonous one--that would then have almost no effect on coloring the holy.  That means you can sand, scrape, or plane your inlay flush before you do the coloring.  Then you can use a light colored shellac as your pore filler, applying several coats, sanding back to just short of cut through, and then repeating.  (The chemical stain also gives a bit deeper penetration than oil based stains, thus giving you a little margin while sanding back the shellac.  Shellac would also make a good general finish one you have filled pores. 

   Working with chemical stains is a bit tricky--you will have to make careful practice pieces with scrap from the same wood in order to get the concentration right and to be sure that some boards don't react too differently to the treatment. 

4. 
   RMillard | May 26, 2009 05:32am | #5

   The following link has some information on working with mahogany and inlays (see the May 19, 2008 entry).

   http://www.rlmillard.typepad.com

   I have not had any problems with ebony discoloring holly, when I scrape it flush and only sand with 320 grit paper in a random orbit sander, hooked up to a shop vac.

   Rob Millard

    

    

5. 
   Frank Vucolo | May 26, 2009 07:56pm | #6

   Nicko

   I have had good success bringing the inlay down using a small block plane or a sharp chisel (in tricky areas where inlays intersect) then finishing it to flush with a card scraper. I find that going right to a card scraper can be a little too traumatic and can cause damage (I hate it when you pull out a hunk of inlay!) With a good sharp plane set to a very fine shaving you can work that inlay down a little at a time - taking your time - until the curl that comes from it has just the slightest trace of the adjacent wood at the high points. At this point, when you move to a card scraper, everything is on around the same plane so the scraper can't get too much purchase in any one piece for it to pull out in a hunk.

   As for the finish. Tough one there. I am generally not using stains when I do this kind of work. You can obviously stain the mahogany first, then inlay. However, at some point you will have to scrape flush and will probably scrape the mahogany enough to impact the stain. I suppose you could then go back and carefully restain the areas that got shaved. I think the retouching would be far greater if you sanded. Just my opinion.

   The project I'm on now is mahogany with mahogany, crotch mahogany, holly and rosewood veneers. I'm going to use some kind of combination of BLO (or not) and shellac to get the desired result. I made some sample boards from the primary solid mahogany and inlaid pieces of the other woods in it. I then kerf the sample boards into 3 sections each for testing. Different types of shellac, from blond to garnet and a blend over bare and BLO prepped samples will give me all the variations to view before I experiment on the piece itself. If I think I need to, after the samples are finished, I may have to make more samples where I tint some shellac coats with dye to get the effect I want. You will see in the photo, how the blond shellac lets the white holly come through, where the garnet obscures the white. The blend in the middle is a compromise. The sample board above it has been prepped with BLO but has not received the shades of shellac yet. I'm hoping that the BLO board with the blond shellac will show more richness in the darker tones, but still let the holly pop. I'll find out tonight!

   I'm not trying to talk you out of stain - OK I am - but I want you to think about why you would want to stain mahogany on a fine piece like that. I'm sure there are other schools of thought. I just think that when you are working in fine materials, stain lessens the end result.

   I'm trying to attach some photos, but as usual I can only get them inserted in a huge format, so I've attached all of them on one .pdf file.

   Practice your inlay and finishing techniques on scrap. I'm sure you will work it out!

   Frank

   
1. 
   nicko | May 26, 2009 09:08pm | #7

   frank

   thanks for the encouragement and taking the time to answer my post also thanks for "talking me out of using stain"

   the stain is what was throwing a wrench into the process. the reason i was going to use stain is that i was on target coatings web site and the owner jeff weiss shown a sample of mahogany with red mahogany stain. it looked like a nice red color i  was looking for.

   i will try some sample peices and see what i come up with

   if you want to. go to target coating web site and click on forums then click on stickys and look at the sample 

   thanks again 

   nicko