Seeking advice for crushed stone inlay

[sorcerertd]

I am about to attempt a rollerball (Jr. George) with Unakite inlay as a special request. I've done this with Rose Quartz and Apatite, but both were on items with a little thickness left in the wood. I'm guessing it will be challenging to cut this down closer to the tube without destroying it. Some of the barrels end up being nothing more than a layer of veneer, though I can, and probably will, leave a fair amount more wood on it if possible. The Unakite comes in at 6.5 on the MOHS scale, so a little softer than the Rose Quartz. It will be going into Bubinga unless I can find some Beli before I start.

All I know for sure is that I'm going to grind up the stone quite fine and use a carbide cutter. Planning to use CA on it as I have done in the past, but guessing there may be a better way? The plan is to drill first, cut and glue the wood to the tube with space between the pieces, carve it down part way, then to glue the stone directly to the tube in the spaces.

Past experience has taught me on several occasions to seek experience from someone that's already been there, done that. If anyone has some experience with this and some tips to share, please tell me what not to do before I actually do it.

edit: I did try it on a scrap piece of oak and it came out OK, but again, plenty of depth to the inlay on that.

 

[Chasper]

I've done a good deal of stone inlay, always use thin CA to glue it in place. If I understand you right, your method is to cut the half blank for a pen section into two pieces before gluing blank to tube. I glue on the half blanks in one piece and use a parting tool to cut partially or all the way through the wood during the turning process. If the final wood needs to be veneer thin I cut it away all the way down to the tube. With this method you can be sure that the grain will be aligned accurately.

For a non-inlay pen, I glue starting from the middle of a two section pen. Put a little thick CA in the hole and more on the tube, give it a few twists as I'm sliding it in, and spray with accelerator. With this method there is a significant possibility that there will be little or no adhesive on the nib end of the pen. It doesn't take total coverage on the tube to hold it in place for turning.

In the case of doing stone inlay on a thin section, you very well might need to turn all the way down to the tube. For that I make sure to put glue in both ends of the section to make sure that the part that has been parted from the rest of the wood is glued tight and will not fall off the tube.

With either method, glue in the stone well before the wood is turned all the way to the final shape. The deeper fill helps keep the powdered stone in place during the process of gluing it in place.

 

[Pierre---]

The bottom under the inlay will always show up, and if it is different from the main material, it will not look good. So if you do the way I understand you want, the tube will be visible, you'd better paint it in a color similar to the wood.
For sure using a fine grind is the best for a thin inlay. But here and there you can use a bigger piece that will look more natural.

 

[sorcerertd]

@Chasper - I was planning on doing something asymmetric like the one below, though a bit wider, so the parting tool won't quite work this time. This one does have quite a bit more "meat" on the barrel by the inlay. I've used the parting tool to inlay a few magic wands and it worked quite well. No tube on those to worry about.

@Pierre--- - Thanks for that tip. Painting is a good idea for sure. Hopefully the finer powder will hide most of it.