Welcome to TJ'S Woodshop
Come on in and take a little time to look around.
I hope you will enjoy seeing some of the things I have made.
Intarsia Gallery
These are a few of my favorite Intarsia pieces.
Intarsiais a form of woodwork where you use different species of wood to get the different grains and colors that you shape to make a 3-D picture. No stains or paints are used, the colors you see are the natural colors of the wood. Different people have different ways of doing Intarsia, here's mine. When I decide what I want to make, I start going through my wood piles until I find all the colors I want to use. Then I plane the wood to get it all the same thickness. When I have all the wood ready, I start laying out the design or pattern, matching the woods grain direction with the way the design goes. I cover every piece of wood I cut with clear packing tape, it lubes my blades and makes cutting a little more easy for me. I cut all the pieces and put them together to make sure I like the colors. If I dont like the way some color turned out I throw away those pieces and recut them from a different wood. When I'm happy with the colors I start shaping the pieces one at a time on a drum sander checking it against the piece before to get the height I want. Once all the shaping is done I start hand sanding. Every piece is sanded and a clear gel varnish is applied as I go. After I sand the first piece and blow the dust off with a air compresser, I apply the first coat of finish and then start sanding the second piece. When I get the second piece sanded I apply the finish to it and go back and the wipe the extra gel off the first one. Then I do the third piece and so on and so on. When you have a design with hundreds of pieces, this method can take a long time. I apply 3 coats of finish over 3 days and that's what gives the wood a deep down luster and a makes it have such a warm glow.
Intarsiais a form of woodwork where you use different species of wood to get the different grains and colors that you shape to make a 3-D picture. No stains or paints are used, the colors you see are the natural colors of the wood. Different people have different ways of doing Intarsia, here's mine. When I decide what I want to make, I start going through my wood piles until I find all the colors I want to use. Then I plane the wood to get it all the same thickness. When I have all the wood ready, I start laying out the design or pattern, matching the woods grain direction with the way the design goes. I cover every piece of wood I cut with clear packing tape, it lubes my blades and makes cutting a little more easy for me. I cut all the pieces and put them together to make sure I like the colors. If I dont like the way some color turned out I throw away those pieces and recut them from a different wood. When I'm happy with the colors I start shaping the pieces one at a time on a drum sander checking it against the piece before to get the height I want. Once all the shaping is done I start hand sanding. Every piece is sanded and a clear gel varnish is applied as I go. After I sand the first piece and blow the dust off with a air compresser, I apply the first coat of finish and then start sanding the second piece. When I get the second piece sanded I apply the finish to it and go back and the wipe the extra gel off the first one. Then I do the third piece and so on and so on. When you have a design with hundreds of pieces, this method can take a long time. I apply 3 coats of finish over 3 days and that's what gives the wood a deep down luster and a makes it have such a warm glow.
After that, I glue the pieces together and wait a day for it to dry and then I glue it down to a backer board and wait another day for that to dry. I install the hanger on the back and its ready to go.
Thats how I made the pieces you see here and I hope you enjoyed the photos, TJ
