TrailRat wrote:

How does one go about inlaying metal into wood. I'm talking about
metals like alu, brass, gold and silver. I was thinking it would be as
easy as simply melting the metal over a bunsen burner in a crucible and
pouring it in carved channels on the wood. Would this work? What would
the effect be on the wood itself? I would like method that would allow
the metal to be flush with the wood when finished.

For gold and silver I thought of gilt but it doesn't produce the right
finish for me.

Thanks for any help.

TR

Forget melting and pouring silver or gold. Their melting
points are in the 1500 to 2000 degree F range, depending
on the alloy. A bunsen burner just won't do it. And pouring
molten silver or gold into a thin groove in wood
a) will char it badly so forget about clean edges or the metal
staying in the groove
and
b) is an exercise in frustration if not futility. Molten gold
or silver is like mercury. Try pouring mercury an a
narrow, shallow groove and you'll understand the problem.
(I made jewelry and taught lost wax casting for a decade
plus so I'm familiar with molten gold and silver)

Forget molten metal and go with silver or gold wire.
Wire typically comes work hardened so you'll need
to anneal (sp?) it first. For that you'll need some borax,
some alcohol, a "pickling" solution a dry brick or
charcoal block and a torch that can get your wire red
hot. Mix some borax in alcohol and either dip your
coiled wire in the suspension or brush the suspension
onto your wire. The borax will act as a "flux", melting
before the wire being heated can begin absorbing
oxygen and "oxidizing", thus protecting the metal.
When the metal begins to glow red dunk it in the
"pickling" solution (DO NOT USE IRON OR IRON
ALLOY TONGS ETC. OR YOU'LL PUT A NICE IRON
OXIDE LAYER ON THE SURFACE OF YOUR WIRE.)
to remove the borax flux layer now on the wire's
surface. The quick quenching will leave the metal
"soft".

Place the annealed wire on a steel plate, preferably
polished, and peen it with a smooth faced hammer,
also preferably polished, to flatten the wire some
and get it close to the thickness you need. The
hammering may work harden the now semi-
rectangular wire so you may have to go through
the flux, heat, pickle process again in preparation
for the fine thicknessing to fit your groove step
that you'll get to later.

Now to cutting the groove(s) for the inlay. You
could use a trim router but there is a much
easier, less mistake prone method to cut grooves.
You'll need a cabinet scraper the thickness of the
groove you want to make, a small knife edge or
triangular file, a flat mill file and a round file.

Here's the cabinet scraper grooving tool and how
to use it.

http://home.comcast.net/~charliebcz/Inlaying1.html

And here's a "thicknesser" you can make, again using
a cabinet scraper.

http://home.comcast.net/~charliebcz/Inlaying3.html

When you've scraped the flattened wire to the
thickness you need mix up a little epoxy and
epoxy the "wire" into your groove. File then
scrape off the excess epoxy and any high metal.

Done! And thanks to Michael Fortune for demonstrating
how to do fine line inlaying - this is his method, not
mine.

charlie b