Another Intarsia Eagle and Wood Burning

[jvbscroller]

I made another intarsia eagle and used it in a project which required wood burning of letters.  

     

 

This eagle is from a pattern in a book by Kathy Wise.  Her instructions say to expand it so the final eagle is 22" wide.  I wanted an eagle that is 12.5" wide, so I did not expand the pattern very much.  Also, I cut the pattern into only five pieces, using oak for the head and tail feathers and using walnut for the body and both wings.   

I adjusted the thickness of the pieces by adding a shim to the head and sanding the wings and tail feathers on a belt sander.  I shaped the wings, body, tail feathers and head with small files, small knives and a hand held rotary tool. 

 

I wood burned the eye.  That was new to me on this project.  Thanks to GrandpaJim for his suggestion about wood burning.  

 

I bought the basswood plank at a hobby store.  I like the way that basswood looks,  especially when it has bark attached, but there is a special challenge associated with the bark.  It tends to flake off pretty easily.  Fixing it seems to be a two-step process.  First I used super glue gel and super glue liquid to reattach sections of bark which had detached or looked like they might detach.  Then I coated the bark with shellac which soaks into the bark and seems to have some properties of glue because it helps the bark stay attached.  Fortunately shellac does not look like glue.  I also used shellac as a top coat for the entire plank and the eagle after gluing the eagle on.  

For wood burning the letters, I put the entire verse onto my computer then flipped it horizontally.  I transferred it as pdf to a USB stick and printed it at a local copy shop.  When the letters are printed on a LASER printer, you can transfer them to the wood as a pattern with a wood burning 'transfer tool'.   Unfortunately heat transfer will not work if you print on a dot matrix printer.  It has to be laser.  It takes time to transfer the pattern this way, but it is quite effective.  That makes wood burning the letters much easier.  

     

 

After wood burning the letters, I glued the eagle to the plank with super glue (gel) and some wood glue.  I applied shellac to the eagle, the plank and again to the bark. 

  

[spirithorse]

That looks fantastic!
Thanks for sharing and God Bless! Spirithorse

[wombatie]

A great combination.  Well done.

Marg

[amazingkevin]

My favorite verse and the best of the best I,ve seen of this verse. You went to he extra mile and then some!!! Your explanation of procedures is fantastic. You could be my teacher

[Tomanydogs]

Thank you for your explanations, I was wondering what your process was on some aspects of this project. You have a great looking piece. Well done. 

[daveww1]

very nice job

[meflick]

Awesome project. Thanks for sharing your techniques.

[GrampaJim]

Nice work!  I love it.

[rjweb]

Beautiful craftsmanship, RJ