I promise it isn’t that hard. It’s all about a few guiding principles if you want to try my methods:
- Use materials that are as exactly the same thickness as you can get. Sanding down even a hundredth to get the layers flat is a pain (unless you have a thickness drum sander, which I don’t.)
- Try to use flat materials, cupping is hard to compensate for if you’re not making a rigid structure like a orthogonal box – it can be tricky to work with cupped materials on these layered boxes.
- Get solid on kerf adjustment. I like 0.006" for most hardwoods and stoke-to-path methodology for adjustment.
- Flip mate the inlay pieces.
- Work quickly with the glue. I use wax paper and a reference surface (a flat stone tile). When you glue up the pocket (Mask your material, use a small paintbrush to fully coat the cut edges and be fairly generous), don’t wait too long to set your inlaid piece into the hole.
– Align it loosely, then use a flat surface (I use scrap BB) to hammer it in flat. [lay inlaid piece, put baltic over, hammer baltic. The inlay gets pushed in evenly, prevents accidental breakage.]
– Wipe off the excess glue, and give it another set of whacks with the hammer directly on the wax paper. You are trying to get the bottom surface dead flat, you want the inlay to match the bottom surface of your surrounding material. That way you only have to sand one side (the top) to even it out.
– Masking is optional but highly recommended here because it lets you bypass a ton of glue cleanup.
Start smaller, and once you get your workflow down you can step it up and do more complex things. It’s really not hard!