Brass inlays?

[Monkey Mark]

As a child i fondly remember playing cribbage with my father.
In an attempt to make more family time, cribbage will be one of the games to teach my kids.

So i figured i might aswell make my own board. I'd like to maybe have some brass inlays in there, problem being I've never done any inlay work.
I've searched YouTube and found some decent inlay videos, but can't find anything relating to brass/metal inlay.

Any video suggestions or sites that may help please? I'd like to make something nice as I'd like to give one to my father to also remind him of those good memories.

P. S. I have access to a milling machine if needed for the brass. May also use it to make a hole template.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Two possible sources of background information might be Boulle work, which involved brass and (usually) ebony marquetry, and luthiers' techniques of installing frets in stringed instrument finger-boards.

Many years ago, I made a set of dominoes by pressing brass pellets into very slightly smaller holes in wooden domino pieces. Each brass pellet was slightly rounded on it's exposed end to make slightly raised 'spots', and trimmed to exact length, and the holes were drilled exact depth with a pillar drill having a decent depth-stop. Never again - it took for ever. However, none of the pellets has ever fallen out, and they're only held by the interference fit. The deeper the slot for the brass, the more chance of the interference fit working. That said, I think a longish string would benefit from a dab of glue, though perhaps not all along a cross-grain string so that wood movement is possible.

Maybe a bit of experiment with a piece of scrap wood and some small-section brass would be worthwhile.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Brass is readily available as square section, so I don't think it would be worth making your own.

Nice project idea.

 

[Glynne]

I haven't used it yet but I bought some brass inlays from http://www.originalmarquetry.co.uk

 

[Baldhead]

Does it have to be brass? If you go to Pinterest and search 'inlay silver wire in wood' it gives you lots of links on how this is done.
HTH

Stew

I've deleted my previous post as I was talking a load of $h1*

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Working practice in silver and brass is much the same, but obviously brass is a sight cheaper.

 

[SlowSteve]

The benefit of silver though is that you don't need to invest in a second set of files in order to work with it.

If you do go down the brass route - buy some files and wrap their handles in coloured tape - and *only* use them with Brass. Don't be tempted to use them "just once" for something else - If you use them with anything else, you will take the edge off the teeth and they'll just slide straight over the brass in future.

Brass is generally a pain in the backside to work with - you need seperate files, it's a totally different method to drill, and really you need specially ground drills, and if you are milling it it's very "snatchy".

Stick with Silver or copper I would suggest.

 

[Biliphuster]

Certainly not my experience with brass. A few months ago I made float with brass pins in the handle and used the same file to even the edges (hardened O1) and level the brass pins after peening. The brass (and rosewood) seemed to cut fine even after the file had been used on the steel.

 

[Droogs]

Also when laying your inlay try to use rabbit glue as this apparently works best rather than fish or normal hide. as said above check out boulle/buhl marquetry vids. if you are going to use a fret saw then get yourself 3/0 pegas blades. Practice making up your packets of veneer and inlay metals make sure they are extremely tightly packed. practice practice practice keeping the hand fret saw at 90 deg to the packet, if you don't it just wont work or look right. I've found the blue masking tape to be excellent as normal masking tape gums up the blade. Or if you really want to go for it make a chavelet first or buy lidl's fret saw next week.