How to do intarsia - raccoon heads

[Bpardue]

I have been asked several times, how do you do this and how do you get such a 3D look out of a flat wood. I have also been told by several people, there is no way I can do this. So I thought I would walk everyone through the process of doing a piece of intarsia. The Current piece I started this weekend was the raccoon heads by Kathy wise. I received the pattern I ordered last week. I made 7 or 8 copies. The original pattern was put away for safe keeping. Sense everyone knows what raccoons look like I needed to decide on the woods to use that best represents those little guys. Woods Chosen were Sapele, walnut, Aspen, Butternut, Peruvian Walnut (for black) and Alder for the Tree. I took 1 copy as the working pattern and put it on the bench and covered with wax paper. Cut up the other patterns to get all the pieces out and applied the parts to the wood to get ready to cut following grain direction & colors. This photo is about 8 hours of laying out & cutting.  Once a piece is cut , I remove the pattern and place it on my working  copy. Repeat the process till everything is cut. One thing to remember is mark the back side of the pieces ( I will explain during shaping)

Now it is time to start adding the depth or 3D look to the piece, you have to image this tree is in front of you with the 3 raccoons looking out of a knot hole. What is closer to you and what is farther away. Inside the knot hole would be the farthest away, than the tree, than raccoons. Knot hole was cut down to 1/2", Tree was cut down to 3/4" ,the raccoons are 1" to 1 3/4" thick. The top raccoon and the left raccoon noses would be closer to you than the heads so those areas where raised with quarter inch raisers.  The right raccoon side of the face was also raised. I mainly cut all my intarsia out of 4/4 wood which allows a good range of raising and lowering. I always raise & lower by a quarter of an inch. Below are 2 photos showing the raising & lower for depth. This was maybe 2 hours yesterday.

 

Now that the hard parts are over with It is time to start shaping. Yes I said the hard part is over. Wood selection, applying to patterns for gain direction, cutting and raising & lower for depth is the hardest part.

I will continue this after I get back in the shop this weekend (real job calling) and will show the shaping process. To shape I use a horizontal flexible drum, Foredum power carver and hand sanding.

Another note on intarsia is you create a lot of fine sawdust. My shop is equipped with  a whole shop dust collection system as well as an air filtration system.

 

[new2woodwrk]

This is great stuff for us beginners - thanks for doing this

[meflick]

Looking good Brian. Your process is pretty much same as what I learned in classes I have taken with Judy Gale Roberts. She too uses a lot of shims to help raise pieces as needed as you have done. I look forward to watching as you update.

[new2woodwrk]

Question about the shims - do you cut them yourself?

[Bpardue]

10 hours ago, new2woodwrk said:

Question about the shims - do you cut them yourself?

I cut raising shims out of 1/4" plywood normally The shim for the right raccoon I used 1/2 ply. I will also cut shims out of the same wood that I'm raising if the shim will be visible from the edge. To get the shape & size of the shim, I use the actual pieces and trace them onto the plywood and than cut the ply wood just inside the line drawn by a 1/8 to a 1/4". Normally the shims are not visible and you don't want the shims to interfere with the assembly process. 

example- I raised the entire head of the raccoon - I took the entire head and traced the head & cut the shim. I than took the bridge of the nose & cheeks and raised them with another shim.

You can use shims for sanding as well if you want a series of pieces to be shaped together. Cutting the shim would be the same but cut the line. For sanding shims I will apply double sided duct tape (works better than regular double sided tape costs more though) stick the pieces to the shim and than wrap the bottom edge of the pieces to the shim with 3/4" masking tape. This prevents the smaller pieces from flying off or coming loose during the shaping & sanding process.    

[Bpardue]

I was only able to spend a few minutes in the shop last night before the wife said we were going out to eat. I did start shaping though and got about 1/3 of the tree shaped.

Once you have raised the pieces for depth using shims, start the shaping. you will need to start with the pieces that are farthest away from you. On the Raccoons that would be the inside of the knothole. One that to remember is: in nature there are not any true straight lines, straight lines are man-made.

For the knothole sense it is towards the center of the piece I just eased the the hard straight edge off with a slight round over. This will give you a shadow line as you move forward. Than I started working out from the knothole working towards me with the depth. That would be the tree itself.  Once the knothole section is done, it was put back in place, and with a pencil I used the finished edge of that piece to draw a line onto the edge of the mating tree piece. That becomes your sand to line. Do not sand beyond that line. In sanding that piece gently roll the edge down to create that round over. I will use my flexible drum sander to do this, I may need to touch it up with some detail sanding with the Foredum or Dremel. attached are a couple of photos I took as I was just starting last night.

Notice the pencil line on the edge

I will update with several more progress photos next week

 

 

[amazingkevin]

19 hours ago, Bpardue said:

I was only able to spend a few minutes in the shop last night before the wife said we were going out to eat. I did start shaping though and got about 1/3 of the tree shaped.

Once you have raised the pieces for depth using shims, start the shaping. you will need to start with the pieces that are farthest away from you. On the Raccoons that would be the inside of the knothole. One that to remember is: in nature there are not any true straight lines, straight lines are man-made.

For the knothole sense it is towards the center of the piece I just eased the the hard straight edge off with a slight round over. This will give you a shadow line as you move forward. Than I started working out from the knothole working towards me with the depth. That would be the tree itself.  Once the knothole section is done, it was put back in place, and with a pencil I used the finished edge of that piece to draw a line onto the edge of the mating tree piece. That becomes your sand to line. Do not sand beyond that line. In sanding that piece gently roll the edge down to create that round over. I will use my flexible drum sander to do this, I may need to touch it up with some detail sanding with the Foredum or Dremel. attached are a couple of photos I took as I was just starting last night.

Notice the pencil line on the edge

I will update with several more progress photos next week

 

 

Lots of work!

[Bpardue]

Well I spent 4 or 5 hours Saturday in the shop this weekend finishing up the shaping. The process i followed is listing above, using the previous piece to mark the sand to line and rolling the pieces down to the sand to line. In general a rolled edge is more pleasing to the eye than a hard edge, the rolled edge will also create shadow lines on the piece. Use those shadow lines to your advantage. What I mean is, no one is perfect when it comes to cutting, everyone will get of the line or bobble when they cut. On Fretwork that may not be a big issue sense once you remove the pattern you mistaken may not be noticeable.  With intarsia those mistakes will be visible as you are mating pieces together. If you roll or round over the edges you will move that mistake down between the mating pieces and create a shadow line that looks like you meant to have it (mistake gone- design feature in place). I normally round mating pieces of the same depth about a 1/4". If you are joining 2 pieces prior to shaping (none of this piece) that you don't want to roll the edge; example a shadow on a wall you would have the wall color and a darker color for the wall; i join the pieces with medium CA glue, shape the pieces as required. After Shaping I take CA glue again and over it over the final seam and work the darker color sawdust into any gaps that may be there. Final sand to remove the excess. 

below are several photos of shaping the Tree

watch you shaping when you get around the raising shims as you do not want them visible

notice the sand to line is still visible, watch for sharp edges after sanding, minor hand sanding can knock the shape edges off

[Bpardue]

After shaping I continued shaping closer to me for depth with the Heads

 

[Bpardue]

Now that the shaping is done this is where the school of thought changes. Some folks will apply the finish on the individual pieces, than attach the pieces to the back that they cut. Other do it the same way I do. At this point I will edge glue the pieces together on the working copy. I use Arlene's clear tacky glue for this process. the reason I use that glue is a few reasons, Drys clear and you have some working time to adjust the fit compared to other glues. It does not hold if you finish the pieces 1st. The other reason is that it goes on as a bead and can help with the issue you may have with the wood lost with the cruft cut while cutting. Once the glue is set completely about 2 hours I will take the glued piece and lay it on 1/4 plywood, Trace it out on the ply and cut the back. I personal don't like the backs to be visible so i cut the back about a 1/4' small than the piece on all sided. I use a sharpie to black out the plywood edge, glue the back to the piece with titebound and a little CA glue. CA will act like a camp. than it is off to finishing. I use a spray finish on everything. I have talked about my finishing process in the past on different posts. I hope these posts will help those that are just starting out with intarsia and inspire those that have never tried intarsia to give it a shot.

Thanks for reading

Brian

Final product

 

[meflick]

Thanks for sharing your process Brian.

[new2woodwrk]

Wow - thanks for this - maybe one day I'll be brave enough and good enough to try this technique - those look incredible!

[Brianr24]

Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful job!

You really brought them to life some great tips also. Did you use wood dowels or a spot of paint for the eye reflections? They look nice.

[Bpardue]

16 hours ago, Brianr24 said:

Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful job!

You really brought them to life some great tips also. Did you use wood dowels or a spot of paint for the eye reflections? They look nice.

No, I don't like using dowels, I normally will put a dot of white paint on the eyes for the reflections.

 

[NC Scroller]

On ‎3‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 2:12 PM, Brianr24 said:

Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful job!

You really brought them to life some great tips also. Did you use wood dowels or a spot of paint for the eye reflections? They look nice.

I learned this trick from taking a couple classes from Judy Gale Roberts.  She uses a square dowel made out of holly or other white wood.  She sharpens the end in a pencil sharpener.  She then drill a small hole in the eye. Inserts a drop of glue followed by the tip of the dowel and trims it off proud with an exacto knife.  After the glue dries she lightly sands smooth. 

[WayneG]

Spectacular, thanks for this 

[Rockytime]

WOW! Cuter than a bugs ear. Very, very nice.

[meflick]

Bumping this thread up as I am pointing someone to it for learning more about sanding and shaping with shims

[planeur]

Thank you Brian for the detail process of your work, so real and beautiful.

While  doing my great heron your course will help me a lot !

planeur

[amazingkevin]

Absolutely stunning!!! If anyone's never seen an intarsia in person, It will put a smile right on your face at the depth etc. I had Clayton send me one and it is unbelievable!!! The low down, side veiw shot of the racoons brings a taste of the quality of seeing it in person. What a piece of art!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!