This week I made some wooden Chinese chess pieces with a different species of wood as a powder inlay.
I first laser-engraved two pieces of hardwood I was able to find on the big laser machine after testing the position of my drawing on a piece of scrap ply.
my first version was bigger than I expected, but I still wend ahead and try out the wood dust inlay method.
So basically I sanded two pieces of scrap walnut wood to oblivion using the orbital sander. I collected the wood dust and then mixed them with wood glue till I get a wet dirt consistency. I smeared the paste onto my laser-engrave piece and waited for it to dry.
These were the pieces one day later. They even looked mildly appetizing. I sanded the excess off with the belt sander and polished the pieces to 600 grits. then I cut them off with the band saw and sanded the edges, before finishing them with some wood stain.
the white powder on walnut base pieces looked super dirty for some reason. Might have been the glue or the dust. I might need to investigate further.