Making Inlay Coasters with the Scroll Saw

you hello I'm Bob under in this video I'm going to make a set of the tract of inlay coasters using two basic tools a scroll saw and a power sander I was asked by a friend if I could make several copies of a design he had of a coaster that he wanted to give his family for Christmas I said I'd see if I could and then get back to him but to my surprise it came out rather good so I'd like to share this method with you you can download the instructions that are in the video for the comments and what you're going to need are four pieces of contrasting wood four inches square about an eighth of an inch thick and also some good quality plywood about from one quarter to one half inch thick you'll also need some double-sided tape that's it for now so next time I see you will be in the workshop about four different species of woods which I'm going to use to make our coasters with I'm going to stack them together holding them with some double-sided tape which I have here okay I have the four pieces I have the mahogany walnut the cherry and maple they're all stacked together and I'm going to let them climb together for five minutes to strengthen the bond it will be really strong when we have to cut it so I'm going to leave it for about five minutes okay so we've waited five minutes to let the strengthen the bomb and with the double-sided tape and now I'm going to put some painters tape across here and this helps lubricate the blade and also makes it much easier to lift the pattern off afterwards you okay and then meet you over at the scroll saw as you can see I've marked the numbers from 1 to 24 this is really important to keep track of each stack of pieces you'll need later on when you're going to assemble the coaster in the right pattern okay so we're going to start cutting I've got a number 3 blade I'm going to tension it up here and ready to go first I'm going to cut out the circle we can stay close to the line you don't have to be exact to later on you'll be taking it to the discs and then we're going to trim it so I'm just saying about couple of millimeters of line okay so I haven't cut it the perimeter I'm going to take it to the sander you right so here we are back at the scroll saw now that we've got the perimeter cut out we can just simply go in through the edges then I put them in this tree here to keep them together separated triangular pieces 1/3 that are the same species I keep together the diamond shape next to it that groups of three one two or three doesn't have to be perfectly straight obviously one of the street as you can but imperfections if you notice as much as you think so let's get the idea here I'll do a couple more and then I'll show you in Bolton where it's complete you now we're coming to the end so even if they're not perfect because they're all cut together at the same time you'll be amazed at how little you see of the imperfections which is one of the great things about this method so we're done these are all the pieces cut out and now we're going to take them and remove the tape to the patterns and then we're going to number the backs with the same numbers so it's really important that you do that and I'll show you later that you want to keep it oriented the same way so when we take it all apart we're going to put the same number on the back of each of these this group here so you'll keep them together so we'll see you later okay so at this point what I've done is I've started to take apart the stacks I remove the double-sided tape and the painters tape on the top I've numbered each of these according to the stack this is really important you don't want to get these mixed up because they are going to fit perfectly later on so I put them back where they were these number three try and keep them together and then number two here and so on now I'm going to continue on doing that you we're starting the fun part of gluing our coaster together but we need to organize the pieces I have a chart here and by the way all of this is included in the plans that I have put in my comments of the year it's available for you if you want I have the numbers of the pieces the species and then the order in which they go around there is approximately what pattern is going to look like so what you're doing is you're gathering up your pieces you're checking out see if there's anything that needs to be sanded a little bit of fuzzies here and there correct number and then you're going to dry fit it around so that it'll be ready when you need to glue it and what we're gluing it to is this here is a half inch plywood and you notice that I've quartered it off in two quadrants so that it's going to be easy to place them around because as you'll see later on it's a really kind of important to get it done within a certain amount of time to adjust for the pieces as they move around so there I am going on I just started collecting my pieces for the first one and one two and three in the next I would get four for instance um number five maple which is over here and you'd find that there and you put that in its place and everything of course it's really well because it was all cut together that's the beauty of this method okay and I'll get back when I've done that you'll see what it's going to look like you now I've taken all the pieces I've drive fit them together and you can see what it's kind of going to look like and then I'm going to put some glue and work in quadrants here and that's why it's really important to have this thing sectioned off so I would start putting glue and the glue that I'm going to use is well bond which sets pretty fast so just enough time to manipulate things around as you'll see to get them as tightly fitting as possible so that's the next step now we're ready to to glue down the pieces and so while while you're checking them as you're dry fitting them make sure that all the tape on the underneath is taken off because that's important because I bought the top doesn't matter you can we're going to sand everything anyways later so now I'm going to put some glue and then spread it out nice and evenly trying not to get it on your fingers because it could be harder to manipulate the pieces I'm putting on a nice amount because the piece want to slide around as its setting ideally you should have like a wet rag available but we'll do it this way okay and then you start from basically you start from anywhere but let's start here use your lines to guide you you so just coming to the end of this part okay so now what we want to do is gently squeeze all around so that things sort of locked together more important that the middle fits tighter if there's a little bit of roughness around the edges it's going to be smooth out with the sander still flexible that's others that's about where it should be okay so around here is going to be Saul sanded you see that there is some edges because of the curve of the blade you're actually losing a little bit of wood so if I had have done an edge glue with same crazy glue you would have had a gap so this is a the best way of compromising and making up for some of the wood that's lost through the saw blade so that's it for now and then I'm going to just take a piece of wax paper put another piece of wood and clamp it for about half an hour and then it's ready for some sanding after using the pieces up for the first coaster you will change the numbers on your pattern at the place you first started in other words for the second coaster pieces 1 2 3 become 4 5 6 then fill in the rest of the numbers for the third coaster start at 7 8 9 et cetera you you I there you you you okay so now I'm going to take the edges and smooth them out a little bit on standing mop this is a 120 grit all right and then final sanding I'm going to send 220 and also the face of it that'll really polish it up nicely ready for spring now you can see even now without the finish nice and shiny smooth and the next stages will be just put a couple of coats of shellac and polyurethane okay there's coat of shellac and let that dry and then come back in the morning put another coat and then some poly rub and that will do it so we now have four finished coasters there shellacked and put poly rub on them and I think they look pretty good put some cork on the back and I hope you've enjoyed watching this video and do your own versions of them and thanks a lot for watching you

Channel: Robert Ungar

Views: 67,245

Rating: 4.8530612 out of 5

Keywords: wood working how to, instructional wood working, inlay, inlay coasters, scroll saw, scroll saw instruction, scroll saw how to, inlay work, download instructions

Id: DWjuaZhdl1M

Length: 24min 21sec (1461 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2016