After yesterday’s success, I am going to assume I am now an inlay master. 🙂

Today I wanted to try something a bit different: inlaying with straight-walled pieces. I chose this simple paw-graphic because it has no corners or tight radii, which would be impossible to cut with a flat endmill. Simple enough, I said to myself, and went on generating toolpaths for both the pockets and the inlay profile cuts based on the same svg.

Both cuts were fast and accurate, or so I thought, because it just didn’t fit at all. Forcing the inlay into the pocket was impossible because there was a pretty generous overlap.

Not sure how this is possible… Even if my machine calibration is off, its offset should be the same for both cuts.

In the second picture, you can clearly see that the circle will never fit the circular pocket… Strange, i’ll investigate…

 

On a different note, I tried something else with the logo from yesterday. I had a ‘bad’ leftover pocket from a failed cut, but the surface profile actually was still perfectly intact, so I decided to fill it with wood putty. After drying, it was easy to sand flush.

Turned out as good as the wooden inlay, although I prefer an inlay where you can see wood grain over this. But for inlays with really small features and thin lines, I can see this method yield really good results.