RAY'S STONE INLAY WOODWORK PROJECT

by Ray Hill

Some time around the first of this year (2003) I received a call from a customer who said he wanted some of the stones mentioned in a magazine article so he could do some inlay work in some wood bowls he was making on his wood lathe. I had no idea what he was talking about! So I asked, and he told me that one of our customers, Stephen Hatcher, had written an article that had just appeared in American Woodturner magazine. (Winter 2002 - American Woodturner magazine). Here are a couple of photos of Mr. Hatcher's stone inlay work. He's really quite an artist!

Here's a link to Mr. Hatcher's website showing his work.
Here's a link to a Bow river specialty woods. They are a source for wood used in doing wood turnings and inlay work. Check them out.

In the article, Mr. Hatcher described how he had taken some mineral specimens and had done some inlay work with them. The article included a number of color photos of his work showing how he had done the stone inlay in his wood turnings; mostly bowls. Seems he had taken stones like Calcite, Azurite, Malachite, Fluorite, and Turquoise and had broken them up into small chips and inlayed them in his woodwork. While turning the vase, bowls, platter, etc., he had cut a groove into the wood and then placed the small chips into the groove. Then he filled the groove with polyurethane, over the small stone chips, sealing them in place. Then the piece was sanded and another coat of polyurethane was added to the finished piece.

Mr. Hatcher added in the article that he had chosen stones with a harness that would allow him to sand any chips that were sticking up too high out of the grooves. He chose stones with a hardness of 3.0 to 6.0, such as is the case of the stones mentioned above. For a number of weeks after the article came out we sold quite a few orders of material to others who wanted to try their hand at doing stone inlay in their wood work. So, thank you Mr. Hatcher and the American Woodturner magazine.

And here is some work of one of Stephen Hatcher's students: Mr. Jan Adams from Bogalusa, LA, near New Orleans. The platters are 12" to 14" in diameter and are turned from exotic hardwoods. Mr Adams is 70 years young and has been doing wood turning for 10 years. In these photos, Mr. Adams has takes some of the world-famous Great South stones, crushed them, and used them in his wood turnings. Looks like he has learned well.
For you fellow wood turners, it you would like to contact Mr. Adams to talk about the art of inlay work, you can contact him at: janadams1@mac.com

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Well, last month, I decided that I would build a stool to use here in my office to sit on while studying the specimens I have in a cabinet. Now I can sit and pull the drawers out and look at all my pretty specimens without killing my back.

While making the stool I decided I would try my hand at inlaying a large fossil ammonite in the center of the stool. I took the ammonite and laid it face down on a sheet of 50# paper and traced the outline onto the paper. Then I cut out the outline and placed it in the center of the stool seat and traced it on the wood. Using a 3/8" and 1/4" wood chisel I cut out the cavity so the ammonite fossil would fit. I glued the ammonite in place and then sprayed six light coats of clear acrylic on the stool to seal it in place.

Here are a couple of photos of my finished stool. I'm kind of proud of it myself, as this is the first time I've attempted something like this. I think it turned out pretty good. Some of you might want to try something like this. It isn't a difficult project.

And here are a couple of shots of a new stool I just made. I built the stool a little differently with cut-outs in the legs and routed out the top of the stool to within 1/2" of the outer edge. I then placed the small thin agate slices on the top and coated it with polyurethane. This project wasn’t too difficult; you may want to try this at home.

Ray Hill
Great South Gems & Minerals, Inc.
www.greatsouth.net
888-933-GEMS

Note: Only rock clubs have permission to print this article but must give credit to the author, Ray Hill, and Great South Gems & Minerals, Inc. For everyone else, please email us for permission.

Great South Gems & Minerals, Inc. www.greatsouth.net 38 Bond Drive Ellenwood, Georgia 30294 USA 1-888-933-GEMS (4367) FAX 770-474-4507