I have a good friend who does woodworking. He supplies custom tables and other custom wood products to the local restaurants. We were talking and I told him I could do inlay with the laser. He was making a cutting board for a customer and asked if I could do the inlay. The inlay is about 3/16" birch and the base is maple. The finished product was sanded and oiled. The restaurant’s name if SHIFT.
The laser is great for fine detail but the real issue is compensating for the kerf of the cut. The beam of the laser is an hourglass shape at the cutting distance. If there is a slight deviation in height, the sides become angled. When milling, this is not a big problem unless the head is off a great deal. To make this inlay work, I cut the inlay base a bit smaller so the inlay piece was sanded to fit which helped with keeping spaces to a minimum.
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That is great!