I had a clock face insert laying around, so I decided to make a clock for my mantel. When it was done, I liked it, but then I didn’t like the clock face. Luckily, I made the panel removable with (my favorite) magnets, so I did another one. This one was a lot of fun, as I tried out stone inlay. Even though it was tough to get it sanded flush, I think it ended up looking cool.
Only thing is, the wood I had for the top was warped. I was hoping it would flatten out when I glued and clamped it, and it did mostly. But there’s still a slight bump. I guess I can live with it though!
It’s a game changer for sure! The only thing I will say is that lapis is really hard to sand flush so you should pay attention to the hardness scale if you want to try it. My first attempt was not very clean because I figured I could just sand off the excess. Umm, no that didn’t work. So I had to carefully pour the granules into the engraved recesses, and then I used a small paintbrush to get as much stray material off of the wood. Then put the thin CA glue by drops into the stone areas, and it just wicked and covered it all. And then sand, sand, sand to get it flush with the surface. Lapis is 5.5 on the hardness scale, which didn’t mean anything to me until I learned the hard way that it is half way to diamond so it takes some elbow grease.
I hear that mother of pearl (way lower on the hardness scale) is much easier, and, I would have used that, but I wanted it to stand out from the yellowheart.
PS - For the numbers, I had to grind the lapis granules into dust with a mortar and pestle to get something that would go in those. Still kept the color though!
They are both really gorgeous, and the inlay is amazing! It sounds like you are using Renaissance techniques to do your art. I’ve got a little book translated from Italian and written back then that talks about grinding of lapis to make pigments.
Okay so I can attest that mother of pearl is way easier to deal with. I tried it out with this, which will be our personalized ornament this year at Christmas. It’s so pretty, but I really need to find something less ridiculous to use it on. I’m just laughing. Also, kind of proud of the four different wood inlay!
