Any of you folks done this before

I've not done it with stone, but I've used crushed charcoal dust quite a bit to fill cracks. Personally, I'm not that fond of the inlaid stone look in cracks, but I've seen a lot of nice work that incorporated it in accent rings like shown in the video.

Another inlay material a lot of folks use is brass shavings from a key shop. Lot less expensive than crushed stone, too. (Free.) Here again, another look that's not one of my personal favorites, but a lot of folks do like it.
 
I probably feel the same - I try to keep the woodturnings just natural as possible but rather than scrap a project I have done some inlay in bad looking defects etc...........Coffee grounds work also
 
This reminds me of a visit i made to a cloisonne ware factory in China.

Very similar approach. They weld thin copper or brass strips to a metal bowl in a design or pattern. The strips are somewhere around 1/8 to a 1/4 inch wide and are welded standing on the edge. This creates the recess that he makes with the parting tool.

They then fill the recess using an eyedropper and a slurry of ceramic. Being metal bowls they then place them in a kiln and fire the ceramic.

What follows has to be the worse human job in the world because you live being drenched with water while they wet sand the surface to an even level.

When they are filling the ceramic they take great care to ensure the "cavity" formed by the strips and design is properly full hence the fine slurry.

The result is a very attractive bowl as you probably have seen in Chinese artifacts stores. It changes ones appreciation for the art when you see the process and the ardous task the workers endure to make it.

Never knew anyone had done this on wood with stone. Not sure how i feel about it since its first time i see it.

My thoughts were that the guy has not exactly fine tuned the technique for getting the stone in the groove but i guess he is interested in selling the stone so why make it efficient.

Could be a great once off fun item. I can see it making turnings more appealing to some and broaden and differentiate the bowl market away from the ordinary mass produced wooden bowl comparison. But with that much super glue involved its no longer just the cost of free green wood but adds significant time and dollars for glue and stone.

Thanks for sharing this with us otherwise i would not have known of it.
 
MY wife just told me that there is a guy in Daytona that sells these inlay bowls at the local crafts fairs on the weekend for about 300 a pop. Interesting.
 
Top