How to Use Wood Filler in Place of Inlaid Rosette
Wood inlays are complicated and somewhat difficult to make. The difficulty lies in the fact that a small piece must be cut out from the wood without cutting all the way through the original piece. The inlay material must also fit inside the original outline exactly, or it will show cracks and get dirty. The easiest way to make a rosette inlay is to use wood filler, a putty substance that will easily morph to any desired shape, eliminating the difficult fitting process.
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Things You'll Need
- Pencil
- Ruler
- Scroll saw
- 3/23 bit for scroll saw
- 1/23 bit for scroll saw
- Solvent-based wood filler
- Putty knife
- Small chisel or ice pick
- Small craft knife precision blade
Instructions
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Draw the design you want onto the base wood piece using a pencil and ruler. Make the outline as precise as possible to allow for the greatest ease in cutting.
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2
Cut around the edges of the outline with the 3/23-sized bit attached to the scroll saw. Use the 1/23-sized bit to cut out any sharp corners. Make several cuts across the design to create small pieces that are easy to remove. Scrape the wood out of the hole with the blade of the craft knife. You can also use a sharp chisel or ice pick to help remove the wood from the inlay. Smooth the bottom of the design with the knife blade.
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3
Fill in the outline with the wood filler. Use a solvent-based filler to prevent cracking or pulling from the edges of the rosette. Fill in enough wood filler to stand out about 1/8th of an inch above the rest of the wood level. Make the filler stand out higher if you want the rosette to stick out from the rest of the wood in a 3-D pattern. Allow the filler to cure for 24 hours.
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Use the chisel, ice pick and scroll saw to cut a design into the wood filler to complete the rosette design. You can make the rosette completely flat, or you can make it 3-D by cutting some areas of the filler higher than others. If you don't want the extra effort of carving a design into the wood---or you want the cleaning of the area to be easy---simply leave the filler uncut. You can stain the rosette a different color, or leave it white to look like a white wood or ivory inlay.
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