inlay for an irish knot

[barrysj]

So I used to take a green swirl acrylic blank and cut pieces to the width of my saw kurf for irish knot inlays. The problem is that it is not the safest thing in the world to do using a mitre saw. I'm looking for a similar "sheet" of acrylic like a pickguard that has green swirl throughout the entire sheet that I can cut up. (pickguards often are layered and don't have the pearl or swirl go already through.)

Does any one have a good plastic or acrylic sheet supplier that has a swirl like emerald green for this purpose?

Thanks,

Dude

Steve Barry

 

[jttheclockman]

I can't say never but I have never seen anything such as that. Do you have a tablesaw or access to one??? I would say that is your best bet. There are some here who use a hand operated mitre saw and maybe you may have that. If you are good at parting things on a lathe you may want to try that. That is all I got for you, sorry.

 

[Mr Vic]

How about a plastic Folgers Decaf can...I've use both the red and green from these. They're not roun but rather multi flat sided.

 

[MobilMan]

Steve. Have you considered a band saw? A lot safer. Check around & you may find someone with one.

 

[barrysj]

Part of creating a successful knot is having precise inlay pieces, do you think I can get repeatable widths that are square from a bandsaw?

Steve. Have you considered a band saw? A lot safer. Check around & you may find someone with one.

 

[DurocShark]

Sled sled sled sled sled sled!!!

A table saw with a sled will allow you to safely cut those small pieces.

A ZCI for your miter saw will work too, but not as well as a sled.

Here's a quick and easy sled: http://blog.woodscrub.info/2008/05/small-crosscut-sled.html

 

[gketell]

Yup yup sled sled. And a HIGH quality, wide blade for your band saw and then, yes you can get the segments you need using it. The other addition for safely cutting long thin strips of wood using any saw is a vacuum rip fence. It holds the cutoff to it so the cutoff can't fall back into the blade. http://www.davidreedsmith.com/Articles/VacuumRipFence/VacuumRipFence.htm

My sled and vacuum rip fence (with micro adjust capability) is shown here http://www.penturners.org/forum/showpost.php?p=831385&postcount=4

With that I make these:

Good luck!

 

[barrysj]

Thanks every one, I'll look towards building a sled based on your all's input...

v/r

Dude

 

[Mr Vic]

Steve - take a gander at this link http://content.penturners.org/articles/2008/6-strand-celtic-knot.pdf I use the band saw a lot for knots and feather work. Nice thing is that my 1/2" blade is very close to the thickness of the plastic strips or brass/aluminum sheet thikness. If you want thicker knots then go for a circular saw jig...

 

[KenV]

I find it strange that the lead for the AAW Segmented Turners Chapter, Malcolm Tibbits is not accused of all kind of bad things. Malcolm uses a chop saw with a holddown for doing all kinds of segmented cutting. He describes the techniques in his book and in his 5 DVDs --

Chop saw works well but it does require a well thought out setup with appropriate holddowns -- just like with a table saw or band saw -

 

[MobilMan]

The answer is yes, Steve. I do all my cutting for pens on the bandsaw. Like always, make sure the end is square. I don't like the thickness of kerf on table saw [even with a thin kerf blade]. I use a 1/4 x 14TPI blade and cut slowly. Leave about 1/32 uncut & wet that area. Then wood will bend to spread kerf open without cracking.