Thread: Bone inlay in wood scales

I wanted to make wooden scales with bone inlay.
I needed several tries, but eventually had something that looked more or less ok.
I decided to post about it here to let you learn from my mistakes

First I glued 2 thin pieces of bone together, and sanded them to shape on my belt sander.
Then I wanted to cut the shape out of wood.

For my first attempt, I used a pencil to draw the shape on a wooden scale, using the bone as a template. Then I used a stanley knife to try and cut the shape. Big mistake. The knife follows the grain of the wood, and you cut into the part of the wood that doesn't need cutting. Scrap the scales.

Then I tried again to draw the ourline, but using a dremel engraving needle to cut out the shape.
Well... Let's just not talk about it. Trying to follow a gently sloping line with a rotary tool in a material with grain structure...

Then I decided to try and use a sharp wood chisel to cut out the shape by 'stabbing' the wood along the line of the shape. That works fairly well. Only I found out that if you start pushing a chisel in wood, it's best not to do this close to the edge of the scale. Especially since the scale is fragile to begin with

So then I took a solid block of meranti, drew the shape, and used my chisel to carefully remove the part where the bone would come. At this point it was still a rectangular block. I chiseled deep enough that I could fit both pieces of bone in there, on top of each other, with room to spare. Then I cut the block lengthwise to end up with 2 thin planks with holes where the bone could fit.

I then glued those blanks to a thin piece of maple for backing, and clamped it for 2 days. Then I glued the bone into the slots, and again clamped it for 2 days. After that, I shaped the scales like I would make a normal pair of scales. I sanded them thin so that the wood and the bone would be the same height. I finished with enough layers of CA so that the surface of the scales would feel like 1 continuous surface.

What I didn't think of in advance was that I should make the slots a bit too small, and then sand them out with sandpaper until they fit perfectly. The slots were a tad too big. I tried filling the extra room with meranti sawdust mixed with wood glue. But that turned black. Still, on these scales, the black line does not look out of place so it is not a disaster, but you might want to try and prevent it.