Inlay cheese cutting boards

Projects
1

To start the X-Carve journey right I have made two inlay cutting boards. Each board took about 2h from opening Easel to last wipe of the mineral oil. I follow the tutorial by Mo and used the inlay app built into Easel.
The first board was done using 1/2" hard maple as the base, and a random piece of 1/8" material for the inlay.
Second board was done using 1/2" wenge as the base and 1/8" hard maple for the inlay. Wenge was a very cool wood to work with. Very dense and solid, I like it a lot.
Both boards were finished using the Wood Finishing Kit.

I have used the Linux Easel driver when carving the wenge board.

Lessons were learned - for first inlay I have not used tabs which caused the letter E to split in half. Second time I have placed a few tabs and it made a huge difference, looks like double sided tape is not enough for thin lettering. Any ideas how can I patch the holes so the board is still usable?

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20180811_1855344032×3024 2.64 MB
20180811_185538
20180811_1855382851×2138 2.51 MB

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2

They both look good. If you saved some dust from the inlay cutout you can mix it with some wood glue and patch the small area. I have done that before and it is not hardly noticable.

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3

Ditto the dust fix!! I do it all the time and you can’t see it.

I don’t like the double stick tape or tabs. I use a can of 3M spray adhesive and stick my inlay board to another waste board. Once the carve is done, use a putty knife and work behind the inlay board and the waste board to free the carving.

4

The glue did the trick! I don’t have any more pictures as I gave both boards away as gifts. After mixing the glue and sawdust to plug the holes and a fair bit of sanding there was no sign of any imperfections. Thanks!

5

It is a nice hidden trick. You just need to remember to get saw dust when you cut.