Wire Inlay

[JSmith1983]

I was reading some articles about wire inlays in knife scales and gun stocks and thought that looked pretty easy to do so I decided to take a piece of redheart that I had lying around and figured I would give it a go. I roughed out a scale shape and thought I would experiment. Well since I didn't have any small chisels or anything I took a really small screw driver and used that. Well needless to say it wasn't as easy as I thought. The dull screw driver made it alot harder to make smooth straight lines and it was a "PITA" to get the wire to go where I wanted to go. It was a fun learning experience however. I now know that I need something sharper to make the lines and got some good ideas on how to guide the wire to do what I want it to. Glad I tried it first before making a nice set of scales and having them ruined by not knowing what I was doing. To the people that do wire inlays in knives and stocks kudos. This is how it turned out. Bare in mind this was my practice piece. You can see what inexperience can do to something you think might be easy. Actually looking forward to trying this again and again till I get it the way I want it. It looks better in the picture than it does in person.

[Chevhead]

Looks pretty good to me...

[Lemur]

Training training, you'll get there!
Sharp tools, never ever cut with your other hand behind the work piece and slightly under cut.
A flattened wire will only want to bend in one plane so it's easier to get it down.

[BobH]

I'd say you are on the right track for sure. Not bad at all for the first attempt. Been meaning to try this too, thanks for the incentive to do so.

Bob

[JSmith1983]

Well I decided to try something else. I used sterling silver round wire instead of bezel wire cause I wanted to try and match the calligraphy writing as much as possible and found it harder to do with bezel. I flattened the wire in the spots to match the thicker writing. Before I did anything I took a piece of scrap ebony and flatten part of a piece of wire while leaving some of it round and since ebony has a tendency to chip and flack thought I would just hammer the wire into the wood and make an indentation. It worked well on the practice piece, but when I went to do it on the scales I couldn't get it to make an indentation so I just thought I would glue it to the top. I really don't like it like that cause then I would have to give it some sort of poly finish. I think doing a CA finish would be quite hard since it would be hard sanding in between the letters. I would rather have it 50/50 in the wood and sticking out. I managed to rip off part of the lettering and lose it. Not sure yet if I will leave it or just remove the lettering and try something else. Kind of fun experimenting with different ideas. Gives me some more practice to get it the way I want. You can still see the glue smeared in places. I didn't remove it yet or finish the wood. I was just trying to see what it would look like since it didn't work as I had planned. Atleast this will keep me busy for awhile messing with different ideas on what to do.

[regularjoe]

See?!! You're already getting better! That S is PERFECT! I have some gold wire I've been saving for this. Enough about me though. YOU are the one doing it, and it looks to me like you're doing it very well. Ofc practice will make perfect. Thanks for posting!

[RezDog]

nice. I was planning to do some wire on some box lids. very inspiring.

[adrspach]

Funny enough. A friend of mine was asking if I do not know anything about wire inlay in wood. Now I know where to send him. Great job.