A New Project

Oak and Beech

I have a stack of Oak, short and wide, I have some long pieces of European Beech.
The dining table is looking shabby and needs to be bigger to accommodate 2 laptops the morning paper and food.
I saw an inlay patten somewhere I can't remember it, this is my version and if all my plans eventuate it will appear in various places on the table and maybe slightly different.
This is the European Beech with a Sapele inlay, the inlay is 20mm diameter so the half is 10mm X 20mm wide, and the piece I show here is 1650mm long and has 84 pieces inlayed.

I started by making a short sample to confirm I had what it takes and that I could be successful, I learnt its important to be square with these cuts as later I would cut the piece in half and roll it over on itself move it along 20mm and glue it together to give the above result, a close look or enlarge the photo and you will see the shape of the cutter also that I had taken out the meat of the cut using the table saw.

The cut sizes was easy to maintain it was the space between that was difficult to maintain and getting the thickness of the Sapele correct so when I put the round on the fit was correct and snug, I had cut the Sapele wide enough to do one and a half pieces so every third piece is joined in the middle but that join will disappear when the length is cut in half later, much of this thinking is about my machinery's capabilities and about not handling small pieces of wood on machines bigger is better within the machines ability.

There are a few burn spots but nothing enough to show on the finished product I hope, gluing in the half rounds was slow with limited cramps and I found it better to glue in every second one to allow for room to tighten the cramps, I cut the inlays 1mm big and dressed them of when dry, I did wonder how my thicknesser would handle the end grain so cut as closely as I could using the table saw, I have used pva through out to give a clean a glue line as possible.

This block will eventually be split into 4 pieces 5mm thick and used on both sides of 2 crescent shaped rails that will hold table legs together, I will form a tenon on the end and the legs will have a mortice, I am thinking a long tenon to protrude from the leg with a mortice in the end then use a wedge to hold in place, a Sapele red wedge would just complete the contrast.