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While I had always started and channel by routing the perimeter first with the smallest bit, I use to use the push and pull guiding technique to guide my router when cutting the perimeter. Every so often it seemed as if the wood grain just reached up and grabbed hold of the router and pulled it with the grain causing unintended dimples to 1/8” long unintended channels in the perimeter of an otherwise near perfect channel. It seems the more porous the wood the quicker the grain will grab the bit especially when presenting the bit in a climbing cut. If you have any travel momentum going and you change from mostly cross grain to mostly inline with the grain the wood wants to suck the bit along the direction of the grain faster than seems possible to prevent it.

Well a couple years ago I stumbled on this sewing machine action Craig mentions here. It is a god send when channeling in woods like rosewood or any wood for that matter. Using the sewing machine approach allows a lot more control that is affected far less by the grain direction of the wood.

I have always figured that I was the only one that did this and did so to overcome a lack of skill or talent the control to do the job carefully enough.

Thanks Craig I feel a little less small when talking inlay in your presents now

Need a quick video of this. Michael? Craig?


Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

If I had a way to do a video this week I would because I am inlaying two vines this week. Basically is simply lifting the base up then plunging down repeatedly doing a series of interconnecting plunge cuts all the way around the perimeter of the outline as apposed to traveling cuts.

Are you lifting/plunging the base straight up and out or do you pivot on one edge of the base and plunge down at a slight angle? The former seems harder to control...

Peace,
Sanaka

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...imagine there were no hypothetical situations...

I am not sure how Craig does but I lift clear of the wood, move over approximately 1.1 times the bit diameter and plunge till I have worked my way around the pattern then I come back and using a running cut to carefully remove the taps left behind. In some really tight areas I will use a tilt that never really clears the wood but for the most part it is plunge lift and clear and plunge. this takes a bit more time but allows for great accuracy and control.

Pivot...keep the back of the base on the wood (like a hinge) & punch holes. (see Art of Inlay)
(Now, if I could only keep from breaking 1/32 bits!)

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Dave
Milton, ON

I "do" some what pivot on the near edge of my router base but I do clear the wood completely most of the time. exception being tight fine areas. Also my base is clear lexan so it is easy to see what is coming up in th near future to cut.

Another thing that I found helped my accuracy a lot was working on a drafting table with the work surface tilted at about 15 degrees I will use carpet tape on the back of the piece to attach it to the table. This relived a lot of strain in my neck because it put me in a more neutral position as I worked in stead of allways looking down at the work. (but you can’t let loose of the base if you do this )

Another tip is due to changing bits from 1/32" bit and its required collet to 1/16" or 1/8" or even larger and the required collet for them you often find that you don’t get your bit set at the same depth with out having t take some time to inure the set.

To help speed this process up I plunge routed a 3/8” deep flat bottom channel in a piece of rock maple at.065 deep. I use this as a quick set depth gauge when changing bits. I put the new bit in, back off the adjustment screw on my base pres down till the bit bottoms out and tighten the adjustment screw and away I go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsZuwAXcfUU
here is a video on inlay.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Time to finally de-lurk. ;-> I don't build guitars, but I do inlay.

I have to heartily second this technique! I started noodling on inlay about 2 years ago and was terrified of routing. 80% of the time it was fine. But 20% of the time I felt like I wasn't in control. I felt good reading Michael's post because he described how I felt exactly! Well I read Larry Robinson's book and watched all 3 of his DVDs. When I found out about the "stitching"/"plunging" technique, I was thrilled! I hounded Larry via e-mail about it and found that he uses it for most things.

Most of the time I do rock my base back an forth. I don't lift the whole thing. I'm still using the Stew Mac base (someday I'll make my own, like Larry's). I use a Foredom too, so I don't have a Dremel to tilt. If you do use a Foredom, I've found that keeping your shaft as straight as you can also makes the router less likely to take a detour. Yeah, lots of humor potential there. My first e-mail to Larry was asking him if his shaft heats up...LOL.

Not only do you have no cases of the router taking off on it's own, this technique also messes up your pattern less if you rout over a printed one! I tried scribing once and said no frakin' way I'm going to do THAT properly...LOL. So I print all my patterns on the computer and either spray glue or CA glue them down.

I'm currently plunging my way through routing a 2076 piece fretboard so I can really vouch for this technique. I do drag the router sometimes... only for hogging out major center sections where I'm nowhere hear the perimeter, so if it takes off I'm in no danger.

Do you guys pay any attention to routing against the direction of rotation? It seems that if I stay with small end mills (1/32" or less) that it doesn't seem to matter.

Craig Lavin is The Man with the real experience here. To be honest, I first joined this forum to get to see the photos of his latest work. You rock, Craig! But if he's busy and you want to ask about things like mistakes and problems...LOL... I'm always willing to try to help. Problems R Us. ;->

...Athena

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http://www.AthenaInlay.com

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http://home.comcast.net/~ath3na3/Portfolio/Port.html

Welcome Athena. The work in your gallery is amazing.
I'm sure your input will be well valued.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Thanks Dave! The archtop in your avatar is pretty amazing too. Where's that drooling smiley?

The Cobra will be my big showpiece when I finally get it done.

...Ath

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http://home.comcast.net/~ath3na3/Portfolio/Port.html

Speaking of inlay tips... Here's something I can't work without:



My lighted magnifying headset from QED/Q-Lighting. I'm thinking of having it surgically implanted...LOL. Ira Cooper is the best. I'm so happy I got to meet him at Summer NAMM this year and thank him in person.

http://www.qedisit.com/
http://www.q-lighting.com/

...Ath
P.S That's not my actual workbench BTW. ;-> I'm not that neat.

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http://home.comcast.net/~ath3na3/Portfolio/Port.html

I'm still too nervous about inlay to do more than rosettes and the random fret dot!

I do feel more like trying it with this info, though. Thnks!

Athena....fantastic work!

Thanks! I was terrified when I first started! And I'm not a guitar builder or a cabinetmaker. I hadn't done anything "real" in my entire life! I was a software developer and then digital designer. I never had to venture beyond the land of the Undo button...LOL.

This routing technique took a lot of the fear and nervousness out of it for me. I hope it helps you too.

Now building a guitar... THAT makes me nervous. Some day.

...Ath

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http://home.comcast.net/~ath3na3/Portfolio/Port.html

What lens power do you recommend for inlay?

Athena, I took a peek at your gallery - fantastic work! Hard to believe that some of that is hand cut inlay...

Hairs on the dragonfly/damselfly's legs?! And the engraving on the tree frog's lighter patchesto shade in the 3D is amazing work.

Mighty fine artwork!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

I usually use the #5 lens. I have a #7 I use occasionally for engraving.

...Ath

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http://home.comcast.net/~ath3na3/Portfolio/Port.html

Thanks! The frog is my very first inlay. Took me forever. I used him later to test the idea of dot shaded engraving. I think I could do it for flat surfaces and things under a finish... but I don't know that I can stipple deep enough for your average fretboard. One refret by an overzealous tech and it'll probably be gone. If it's an "art guitar" and I know it'll be treated as such, maybe it'd be ok.

The hairs on the damselfly legs are cut into the board with an X-acto and filled with pearlescent purple paint. Then sealed over with CA glue. They were really easy. I've got some pretty small endmills - but not THAT small. They get shorter as they get smaller anyway, so you can only go so far. And they're more liable to break. I killed a .016" and a 1/32" on the Old School Chopper inlay. Now the spokes on that were a real challenge. Next to the Cobra, that was the hardest thing I've had to do. Of course, the Cobra isn't done yet. I've got 8 more frets left to rout. Probably 27 million air bubbles to pick out and fill. I won't know what engraving it needs until I see what I sand into figure-wise and how well I pulled off any outline action. It's a 10" radius, unfortunately.



...Ath

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http://home.comcast.net/~ath3na3/Portfolio/Port.html