FrankEV

Wenge is just Eyes and nose. Quite hard but cuts fairly well. Doesnt really look black until a finish is applied. The dark lines in the manatee is just the edges of the individual pieces being shaped for deffinition. The Manatee is all just one color, but the photo lights create the darkening of the joints. Much more uniform in real life.

As a Florida resident I felt it would be appropriate to make an Intarsia piece of our well-known waterway residents, the Florida Manatee (Florida’s State Marine Mannal) that are often affectionally called Sea Cows. I developed the pattern for a 12”x 16” panel from a free Coloring Book page. I chose to add a 3/4” wide rail frame with mitered corners, fixed to the panel for an overall 13 1/2” x 17 1/2” size. Wood Used: Aspen, Blue Pine, Black Limba, Poplar, Wenge, and Ebonized Walnut for the Frame. The piece is protected with multiple coats of Clear Semi-gloss Lacquer. The color of both the Aspen representing the Sea water and the blue Pine used for the Manatee were enhanced with dyes. Comments and critiques are always welcome. I will post the pattern in Pattern Exchange

The backer gets the air brush coloring. I attempt to set a scene with sky and ground colors. The reflection off the background colors and the shadows created by the 1/2" thick cutting play havoc on the photo. That image was the best of about a dozen shots.

I suggest you read my post in Coffee House; “Where have I been”. I’ve noticed recent post of people cutting ‘Tree Of Life’ fretwork type projects. For my return to the work shop, I decided my first project would not be an Intarsia piece, so, I thought I might join the crowd and see if I could come up with a new, but somewhat different pattern, for a 12” diameter T.O.L fretwork project. This is what I developed. The pattern has 230+ holes. I used 1/2” thick Walnut that I cut with Pegas #3 mgt R blades. The suggested use of solid wood results in a very delicate, easily broken (which I can attest too), cutting that requires a backer. As an option, using my Air Brush and Acrylic paints, I chose to pre-paint the backer before affixing the cutting. The final assembly was protected with multiple coats of spray Lacquer. Photo lighting creates a lot of shadows of the 1/2" thick wood. Less noticable in real life. Comments and critiques always welcome. I will be posting the pattern in Pattern Exchange

24" diameter.

Funny you should ask. We just returned from an 8 day Cruise to the Carribean and while on board, booked two more crusies, an 11 day Southern Carribean cruise next November and a 19 day Seattle to Miami cruise throut the Pannama Canal in September of '27. Optimistically hopefull I'll be around to take it. My sales do not pay for them or for the Diamond Necklass and Rubby Bracelet I bought for her on this past cruise. That was just spending my kids inheritance. The money I make on sales will never cover the material cost I have already expended on my art. It is just a wonderfull feeling when someone appreciates the art enought to purchase it and display it in their home.

Back on Nov 11, 25 I posted my "Another Tree Of Life- Intarsia". I hung this piece in the Gallery, where I display much of my work, just before last Christmas. Gallery Price, which includes their 35% commission, was $900. I have just been informed it was sold. You would not guess that I'm very pleased !!!! That is a total of 7 pieces in about 6 months...not too bad, I'd say. Just to refresh you memory here is the piece again.

The branches (dark and light) are two different woods. Both had some texturing to look like bark.

Looks good. Very interesting project.

I adapted a Stained-Glass pattern into a 24” x24”, 250 piece Intarsia pattern making many modifications to the original. Wood used: Aromatic Cedar, Cherry, Bloodwood, Padauk, Poplar (Green dye enhanced), Purpleheart, Osage Orange, Roasted Birch, Sapele, Yellowheart, and Walnut. The Intarsia assembly was mounted onto a 1/4” thick extended, and painted, BB Plywood backer. The mitered full 4/4” x 2-1/2” wide Walnut Frame rails were rabbeted and affixed to the backer and Intarsia assembly. The entire piece was protected with multiple clear coats of, Gloss for the Art panel and Matt for the Frame, Polycrylic Spray Finish. 24+5 =29" 24+5 =29" Comments and critiques always welcome.

I dye after pieces are shaped and finish sanding. Usually apply the dye with air brush or rag.. Yes it will raise the grain, but after assembly, I use a sanding mop on a wand to do a final light sanding to entire piece. Does not affect the dyed wood. Then a final buffing with a buffing wheel on a wand before applying finish.

The Brand is Keda Dye. I purchased the 5 color kit (https://www.ebay.com/itm/355444405005). Very concentrate, a tiny amount goes a long way. For the amount of wood I dye, it will long outlive me. Works on any wood. Resulting color will vary based on color of wood. Light color wood dyes truer to color than dark wood. I have enhanced the green heartwood of poplar for leaves with green dye often.

The photo colors are not too accurate. The nearest water is blue ( more grey) from Blue Pine. The far water is Black Limba that is a mottled color that has a faint green tinge. Blues and Greens are difficult to find in natural wood and I did not want to use dye or stain to enhance the water color. Yes, the grain direction would have been better more horizontal. Sapele does not have a strong grain anyway so not a very visual foopar. Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.

Yes. The frame is rabbeted to sit on the 1/4 inch thick extended backer and glued in place.

This framed 12” x 16” Intarsia Art was made from a pattern that I created from an image of an abstract painting that featured a bright Yellow sky. The Artist is unknown. Wood used: Aspen, Blue Pine, Black Limba, Roasted Birch, Sapele and Walnut for the Frame. The Spinnaker sail was cut from a different piece of what I thought was Aspen but may have been Butternut as it darkened when the finish was applied. The clear parts of the Blue Pine used for the sky pieces were enhanced with an application of a very diluted Yellow dye. The finish is Clear Semi-Gloss Spray Lacquer. As allways, comments and critiques welcome. Edit: Pattern posted in Pattern Exchange.

Nice, very well done. An oil finish will dry out over time and collect dust especially during storage eleven months of the year. If you prefer a natural color finish, a clear lacquer or clear polycrylic spray finish would be better.

If you really wanted it to be a more "true" Intarsia piece, you could have cut it up more and made all the pieces you stained from diferent color wood and even the windows could have been wood inlays. I can envision a piece, as I described above, with the Space Shuttle mounted on a stand-off from a black backer that had some gliiter to represent stars, and the assembly set into a shadow box type frame. Not in my skill set, but there are those who could make it happen. BTW very nice work and very unique display.

No backer. Back sanded smooth. Laser engraved with date and logo. Both front and back finished with clear Gloss Acrylic Finish. The spray always makes the pen ink bleed.

My lady Robin and I host a cookie exchange party with a few of our neighbors the week before Christmas. For the last few years, I have been making a Dated fretwork type Scroll Saw Christmas Ornaments to attach to the cookie platter. This Year I wanted to do an Intarsia Ornament, so I developed a pattern for this 3”x 4 5/8” Santa Face ornament. However, needing 6 ornaments and knowing the problems I have keeping Aspen white, the wood I would use for the White pieces, I decided to do a simple painted segmentation piece instead. Wood used was a nominal ¼” thick piece of Beech that I stack cut three at a time, using a Pegas # 1 MGT R blade. After sanding and shaping, I used my Air Brush to apply Air Brush Acrylic paint to color the pieces. To Date the Ornaments, I sanded the back to smooth finish and used my Laser Engraver to add the year (Christmas 2025) and my Logo. After adding my signature, each Ornament was protected with multiple coats of Clear Gloss Acrylic Finish spray. For this project cutting was simple, but keeping all the pieces organized during the sanding, shaping, assembly (a very tedious glue up), and finishing was a bit of a challenge. Comments and Critiques always welcome. I'll post the pattern in Pattern Exchange.

Yes

I adapted a free downloadable Stained-Glass pattern into a nominal 10”x16” pattern for Intarsia. Wood used: Aspen, Padauk, Poplar, Purpleheart, and Osage Orange. The Aspen was enhanced with pickling-white stain, and the Poplar was enhanced using a dilute green dye. Finish is multiple coats of Clear Semi-gloss Lacquer. After cutting and shaping, fit-up was good, but glue-up assembly was difficult to maintain proper positioning. I'll be posting the pattern in Pattern Exchange for the those who like a challenge. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Shaping the three main pieces of the tree trunk is the hardest part of the project. Good luck.

Barb found them.

After making Jon Rigsby III’s 24” dia. 'Tree of Life' pattern a while ago, I thought it would be a good idea to make another large Tree of Life piece, but this time without a backer. However, I did not want to repeat the same work, so I decided to create my own pattern with some help from the many varied free Tree of Life renditions available. The piece, as designed, is also 24” diameter, has 120 pieces, and hopefully, is somewhat unique. Because this piece does not have a backer, it was important to design the pattern with very strong joints. This approach minimizes the risk of breakage by avoiding very small or narrow connection points. Wood used: Brown Birch, Canarywood, Osage Orange, Padauk, Poplar, Purpleheart, Sepele, Walnut and two very tiny pieces of Wenge. The finish is multiple coats of Semi-gloss Lacquer. Comments and critiques always welcome. I'll be posting the pattern in Pattern Exchange. UPDATE EDIT 02/18/26: I hung this piece in the Gallery, where I display my work, just before last Christmas. Gallery Price, which includes their 35% commission, was $900. I have just been informed it was sold. You would not guess that I'm very pleased !!!! That is a total of 7 pieces in about 6 months...not too bad, I'd say.

Although I have been busy on some projects that has kept me out of the shop a lot the past three weeks, I was able to sneek in a few hours to create the following two Christmas pieces: Cresent Santa – I made this 11” x 15” piece, consisting of 50 individual pieces, from a pattern I adapted for Intarsia from a SVG file designed by AlishaLynchStudios that I purchased on Etsy. The on-line artwork associated with the pattern showed Santa’s beard in shades of light grey, that I attempted to duplicate using an ebonizing solution without success. This forced me to paint the beard a slightly grey tinted white using an Air Brush applied acrylic paint to hide the mess I had made. Wood used: Aspen, Blooodwood, Cherry, Poplar (enhanced with green dye), Purpleheart, Yellowheart, and Wenge. Christmas Pelican - I made this 10”x14” piece from an Intarsia pattern I created from an image found on a Christmas Card. Only 33 pieces make up this fun piece. Wood used; Aspen, Black Limba, Bloodwood, Canarywood, Osage Orange, Padauk, Sepele and Wenge. A little weathering solution was use to add some grey tone to the Back and Tail feathers. The fur of the hat and tassel was enhanced with Old Masters White Pickling Stain. Commentss and critiques always welcome. I post the patterns in Patten Eexchange.