I plan on making a cabinet to hold all my music – lots and lots of shelves so that I don’t have to wade through a pile of music to find something. With, say, 26 shelves or so, I can have one shelf for each letter of the alphabet and sort the music based on the first letter of the composer’s name. (Well, not sure that I need a shelf for X’s and Z’s!). The cabinet would be split into two vertically – so about 13 shelves on each side. In addition to the shelves, I wanted to make 2 side by side a drawers and for the drawer fronts create a marquetry inlay of the a piece by Bach – the first line only (i.e. the first 2 bars). [See linke below] I’ll probably start off creating the staff by ripping a groove using the table saw (or using a scratch stock) and inlaying strips of darker wood. http://www.sheetmusic2print.com/Bach/Prelude-1-BWV-846.aspx Has anyone tried an inlay like this before? Its way more complex than anything I’ve attempted previously. I mostly use a scroll saw with a bevel technique to inlay, but the detail here is very fine. Also, the issue causing me the most trouble is how to cut the notes. Musical notes are not exact circles – so using a drill and circular plug would work, but would not look right. If I try and cut out ovals, they will not be uniform and I suspect that the final result will look amateurish. Any thoughts on how to get consistent very small ovals for the notes? Thoughts or alternative methods on how to attack this would be greatly appreciated!
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Replies
Mervyn,
Inlaying music like that would take some work but it is not impossible. It sounds like you have done some inlay work before so this may be a bit basic for you but Rob Millard, who used to contribute to this forum before the change, not sure if he still does, has a great entry in his blog, http://rlmillard.typepad.com/, titled Inlaying Letters/Numbers Into Wood from April, 2009 that has some good ideas for a project like this.
Chris
you can also view techniques that the guitar makers use to inlay the finger boards - they use pearl - ebony - etc.
SA
I think what you want to do is make two templates for use with a router and small guide bushing and inlay bit - one for the oval of the note, and one for space into which the note will go.
A more complex template set could be used to cut the other parts of the notes and laying out the corresponding inlay cuts.
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