black resin in place of ebony inlay?

[Russ]

Hello all, I am planning on building a dining room table out of maple or ash (a white wood). On top of the table I want to get crazy with my router and using a 1/8" or smaller bit, make random "ant tracks" on the table top (like you might see in an ant farm). Then I want to fill these tracks with some resin or black material that I can sand and finish. I am trying to mimic the look of inlaid ebony. My thoughts were that I could stain some fine sawdust (like from a belt sander) and then mix with a clearish glue and paste into the routed groves. Or I could use some sort of black resin to fill the gap. The resin would need to be able to be sanded and yield a smooth surface. Anybody have suggestions here? Thanks

[RicodJour]

IIRC, there was an article in Fine Woodworking about using resin for inlays (inpours?) several years back. Search the Taunton.com site.

R

[Steve]

Russ wrote on 01 Oct 2007 in group rec.woodworking:

I worked on a house awhile back where another contractor was putting in a mesquite floor. Mesquite has lots of voids. Some of them were 3/8" wide. They filled the voids with black-tinted epoxy, then sanded. It looked great.

OT: I was putting in mesquite and aldar trim. Mesquite is the hardest thing I've ever worked with. I had to buy a 100-tooth side-beveled polishing blade for my miter saw to keep it from chipping. After that, I had perfect glue-ready joints.

[Scott Lurndal]

Two-part epoxy tinted with artists oils.

scott

[J T]

Mon, Oct 1, 2007, 6:40am (EDT-3) [e-mail] (Russ) doth sayeth: Hello all, I am planning on building a dining room table I want to get crazy make random "ant tracks" Anybody have suggestions here?

What the other guys said. But, why not make a bit of effort, and make it look like something you meant to do, rather than "ant tracks"? Straight lines along each side would look good. Ant Tracks? I don't think so.

JOAT "I'm an Igor, thur. We don't athk quethtionth." "Really? Why not?" "I don't know, thur. I didn't athk."

[Smaug Ichorfang]

Russ wrote in news:1191246004.099362.64330@

19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com:

I've used epoxy mixed with printer toner powder. You can adjust the mix for maximum color and hardness. Toner powder is very light and fluffy, and can get into/onto everything (almost as bad as airfloat charcoal!). The other technique is to pack the inlay "groove" with toner and apply a few drops of CA glue (the thin glue works best). This also results in a very hard but sandable "inlay".

[David Penner]

I've done this on a number of projects using two-part epoxy, wood dust and artist oil paint as a tint. One tip--after you route your pattern put a good seal coat (or two) of shellac on the non-routed parts next to the "tracks" It's next to impossible to put the tinted epoxy just in the tracks. Any "spillage" tends to get into the pores of the wood you want to stay white (especially with open-pore woods such as ash). You can scrape the sealer off when you scrape/sand you epoxy level.

dp

[Andy Dingley]

Good quality epoxy (West System) Phenolic microballoon filler (also West) Black acrylic paint (cheap artist's stuff)

Scrape or sand afterwards

[todd]

I put in a ~600 SF of mesquite floor last year in our new addition. I didn't find it difficult to cut with my normal blade in my SCMS. The rough part was gluing it down. I was recommended Bostik Best, which is a urethane glue. Nasty stuff to work with, IMO. I'd rather nail down 5 floors than glue another one like that. Even one of the flooring pros I had come in to give me a price to sand said he glued down a wood floor with it once. Once.

By the way, the mesquite I got was a select grade, which required little filling. My cousin, who is in south Texas and mills a "rustic" grade of mesquite flooring, also uses epoxy (System 3) and tints it black with acrylic hobby paint. Mine required very little filling, somewhat to my dismay. I kind of liked the look of the black with the mesquite, I just didn't want to spend two days filling like he did when he did his own floor.

todd

[Lew Hodgett]

once. Once.

If there is a next time, talk to SikaFlex in Detroit.

I used Sikaflex 291 to glue down the subsole on a boat.

You might like it.

Trick is to have a good gun, not some crap from Home Depot.

Lew

[Robatoy]

Find a solid surface fabricator and ask him to get you a small tube (50 ml) of Corian adhesive in black.... or dark brown ..or any one of

50 colours. About 15 - 20 dollars. Very sandable.

[Ralph E Lindberg]

that is what I do for turning (except I use powdered dye from Craft Supplies USA)

[Steve]

Try this to tint epoxy:

this:

this:

've used the last two of these on different occasions when doing inlays on my guitars, either to glue the inlays into ebony fingerboards, or to provide a black background for abalone or pearl.

--Steve

[Cubby]

Yeah, I glued down approx. 1000 sf of floors in my house as well. Used the Bostick's Best as you describe. What a messy product!!!! But it sure grabbed those boards and I haven't seen any issues so I guess it was worth it. I hate slab on grade houses!!! Cheers, cc