Intarsia follow up

If you are interested in trying some of your own intarsia (and if you have a scroll saw, you really should give it a shot) you will definitely want to check out Judy Roberts aptly named web site, Intarsia.com. Just tons and tons of great patterns.
Patterns such as the one Randy Cosgrove used to make this delightful piece:

(The picture wire was only temporary to take a shot of the finished piece) Randy has been making intarsia pieces for a few years now and offers a few more tips:

• There is a lot of sanding involved and the best thing I found to soften the edges is a pneumatic sander that chucks into the drill press. You can pump it up to be as hard or as soft as you want and it really makes getting an evenly rounded edge easier.
• I usually do the finish sanding on each piece with a 220 grit mop sander before assembly. Seems to give the pieces a nice burnish. 
• It became a lot less messy when I finally got around to rigging up a small hose from my dust collector to “hover” around the sander.

*****

Mere Minutes