I'm getting a scroll saw for Christmas (but I'm not supposed to know
about it, so don't tell my wife I told you...), and I'm already
starting to dream up my next project...

I want to build a poker table, and I was thinking that a nice touch
would be to do some inlay of the four suits around the table. I have
never worked with a scroll saw before, but I imagine even with a
scroll saw and a skilled hand it's very hard to make the two sides of
an inlay line up perfectly so there's no visible gap..

I was wondering if it was possible to just do the female part of the
inlay, and fill in the rest with some sort of putty (like
woodfiller), and then sand it smooth once dry. I would finish it
with polyurathane. The filler doesn't have to look like wood (in
fact if I could get a shiny black/red finish, so much the better).

The area to be filled would be the four suits, each about three inches
high. The inlay would be done using 1/4 inch stock, so it's not very
deep.

If anyone has done anything like this with either positive or negative
results, I'd love to hear about it.

John