Jim Finn

My first inlay (Horse)and my one of my latest:

I paid $600 for this saw five years ago. Mine is a 1986 model. Single speed , no stand and it is a 25" saw. Parts are still available for it. I do not do any fretwork so single speed is fine with me. I bought it as a back up saw and have used it a lot. I have another Hegner as my go to saw for inlay. I agree that I would not recommend a Hegner to do fretwork. Blade changes are cumbersome compared to other saws. The Hegner advantage is durability.

Offered them for $6 and sold three at about 10 sales. Still have 10 left.

Yes phone holders ARE very slow sellers!

I just received parts form them that I ordered through their website. Took over a week to get here and one of the parts I ordered is incomplete. I have emailed them about this but no response.

No "overtime" I am retired with a pension.

My sales for the year are also at an end. I tried selling beside a Christmas tree sales place that a friend has but the sales were dismal. Not enough traffic to make it work for me. His tree sales are good though. I'll not try that next year. My gross sales for this year were within 2% of last years sales. Not my highest years, but just fine with me. I also started making toys 12 years ago and selling them. After two years, I started making boxes and still sell 160-200 of them a year. Well over 2000 now. Almost all of my sales are bought for gifts and people tell me that they are well received so they buy more to give to others. I get a lot of repeat business that way. I also offer something new each year and that helps with sales total. Lately I am tired of making boxes with inlay so tomorrow I plan to start making more toys. Toys to donate because I sell few. I will do that about a week and then likely I will go back to making boxes, or whatever I can dream up. I am cutting my hours in my shop from 35 to about 20 per week. Getting old I guess.

I just brush on Deft and sand it. (usually one, or sometimes, two coats) I spray on rattle can of cheap lacquer. Less than $4 a can. "Krylon Triple thick finish." Gloss.

This is what I do with cedar, also. I then spray with lacquer. (rattle can) I use a LOT of cedar.

I have used Corian as an inlay, but next to wood it appeared very flat because of no grain. I eventually sold it, but it took over six months of trying to accomplish.

I grew up on a gravel road outside of town (not on a farm) and one block away from a huge corn field. I now live in a Texas city that is surrounded by cotton fields so I made this box with cotton inlay.

I could not pass up the chance to buy a used Hawk G4 26 off of criegs list. It is about a 2006 and has seen lots of use but seems to cut well. I paid $250 for it. Came with extra blade clamps, a light, and a stand. I now have two Hegners and a Jet but this Hawk is the only one with speed control. All my others are single speed motors. I have not figured out how to get enough tension on the blade I want but tomorrow I will work on that.

This is one of my boxes with inlay. Cedar box with inlays of walnut, bois d' arc, Bubinga, maple and basswood.

I have put the vac outside the shop and ran the hose to the equipment through the wall. Worked well for noise control. I have the same set-up for my dust collection system now.

I gave up on using a shop vac for dust collection. I killed three vacs trying it. Seems they are not made to run for hours on end. Even burned up a new large rigid vac.

The reson for the six degree angle of the starter hole is because I use a 1/16" drill bit . A smaller bit could use less of an angle, true, but using a smaller bit does not work well for me because if the blade just barely fits through the starter hole the tensioned blade will hold the wood at too big an angle and can bend or break the blade. Here is a trick I recently learned about hiding the starter hole. If after doing your inlay cut out and before gluing it in place , if the starter hole will be visible I lightly sand it away at the top surface and the bottom surface in the to be inlayed wood and in the background wood. I then glue the inlay in place and after the glue has set I use filler, made from glue and sanding dust and apply it. Now the starter hole just looks like a very slight wide spot in the outline. If one does not know where it is it is very hard to find.

Having done thousands of inlays does not make me an expert.( but I have sold them all ! ). I tilt my table at about 2 degrees but I drill my 1/16' starter hole at about 6 degrees just inside the image side of the line with the wood to be inlayed under the background wood. Here is a photo of my very first attempt! (I sold it) )

I had this same problem. I found that my 2008 Polymax-3 had an iron table (no problem there) and my 1986 Multimax-3 has an aluminum table and this is were I had this problem. I tried a few solutions but finally just applied a 1/8" painted, Masonite top to the aluminum table and solved the issue!

Great work Dave! Wonderful boxes! I agree flocking is a flocking pain to get perfect. As to hiding the entry hole, what I do if it is obvious, is to shave off the imperfection with an Exacto knife before gluing the inlay in place. This gives a slightly wider kerf space that is not noticed after filling in with filler. I also usually use 3/8" wood but I needed to do inlay in 3/16" thick wood that I am using for the sliding cover of wine bottle boxes. Without changing my saw table angle I just inlay the 3/8" wood into the thinner wood and push it through until the back is flush. I then cut and sand off the front flush. Here is a photo of my first three of them.

Two more I made this past week. Oak burl (veneer) inlaid on oak box lid and flag in Texas on oak box.

I use a number five, flying dutchman, blade and table tilted at less than two degrees. Yes 3/8" stock. I had a customer ask for an oak box with cowboy boot inlaid with walnut and I have a bunch of oak, that was given to me, so I am working on making a dozen oak boxes. Cedar sells much better than other woods but I could not think of another use for the oak. Almost everything, I have made, eventually sells.

No, the internal lines are cut in and filled with the filler mixture i mentioned . If you look closely you can see that those lines do not meet other lines at one end. This is so that the boot comes out in one piece. You can see this easier in this one.

I know the feeling. I cut mine so the fit is quite loose and I then fill in the small gap with a mixture of sanding dust and white glue.

I have been making a lot of boxes with images inlaid into the hinged lids. These are the most recent: Oak burl (veneer) cross inlaid into oak. And walnut boots into oak.

I again offered these phone holders for sale today but had no interest in them at all! I am glad that I only made twelve of them.