I generally use a stationary belt sander and a spindle sander. I use cut trace method. You trace piece off pattern with carbon paper on to wood. Cut piece. Now get next piece ready to trace, place already cut piece on pattern, trace off cut piece and off pattern. Concentrate most when cutting next piece on the trace line matching first piece. Now put the two pieces together and see how good joint is. Use spindle sander to make any fit adjustments. Tape those two tight together and repeat to obtain next piece and so on.
Use belt sander to shape pieces starting with thickest ending at thinnest pieces..generally from center outwards. After all pieces have shape, take every piece back to sander and make a quick 45 bevel just to break all the edges, not round the heck out of them. Then I hand sand every piece to remove scratches. The edge bevels will become round but nice and subtle creating gentle shadows.
Finally. Edge glue it all together on piece wax paper..just tiny amount wood glue and keep glue down near bottom so it doesn't sqeeze up. You just need it to hold together so that you can glue it on your box which will give the pic strength.
That is the blue ribbon intarsia blackberry keyboard crash course! You can see and read some intarsia articles on my website free
