After many many battles with inlays we finally finished the gifts the day before the wedding. It was a 2-3 month project to do 11 of them.
Folks loved them but almost everyone said they were too pretty to actually use.
The base is cherry, then walnut, sapele, and two with blood wood and the rest with paduka.
We finally settled on Titebond Poly instead of Titebond III and that made a huge difference. 45min - 1hr dry time instead of 24-48hrs, but it makes a mess so we had to mask around to keep the glue out of the un-used pockets.
All of the cuts were with a 1/4" end mill and 90deg vbit. Only broke a couple end mills by doing stupid stuff.
Blood wood and I have a love hate relationship. I love it, it hates me, the X-carve, the bits, etc.
Here 9 of them are laid out on the kitchen island before they got wrapped up.
We have a lot of it documented and our one daughter is going to make a video of it at some point.
BIG thanks to everyone in the forum that offered advice, suggestions, and tons of information.
