Proof of Concept Wax Inlay

[MackTheKnife]

This is carved in the style of the wedding spoon traditional in Brittany, France. Carved in aspen. Wasn't terrible, but I had to be real careful not to break anything out. I wasn't always successful. It was fine for a proof of concept spoon where I was WAY out of my comfort zone.

The spoon is 7" long. The handle is 3-1/4" long, 1-1/2" wide at the top and 1" wide at the bottom. The bowl is 2-1/2" long by 1-5/8" wide. This is a typical size.

The designs are chip carved and are traditional. Breton Wedding Spoon symbology is deeply steeped in Catholic liturgy. Centrally located is a monstrance flanked by candle sticks. The heart at the bottom, as will most if not all Breton spoons, does not represent romantic love, but the Sacred Heart. The cut-outs near the top allow the spoon to be carried on a looped string. These spoons were functional as well as decorative, meant to be used at the wedding feast and thereafter. They were also a symbol of status.

I did all the chip carving with the knife shown. It worked fine. The problem was that my old eyes couldn't see well enough against that white wood to let me see if my cuts were a consistent width and depth, even with +3 magnifying glasses. Also that border is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. It's 1/4" in from the edge. I thought that was about the same as on the historic spoons, but I could be wrong. I do tend to make things smaller than they should be. One of the traditional designs is an incised triangle within the border triangle. At this scale, I simply couldn't see well enough to do that. I tried pressing the tip of one of my larger scandi-grind knives into the wood as a substitute, but aspen being aspen I had to be careful not to break anything out and thus sometimes the wood just sprang back. In a harder wood it might
work better.

Now let's talk about the wax inlay. I include in the photos the contact info for the wax I used. I got it at a hobby store called Michael's. (And, no, I am not afilliated in any way with Garners or Michaels!) In the wedding section, of all places! It seems to me to be plenty hard for the purpose of wax inlay. After I applied it (much thicker than it needed to be since I didn't have the faintest idea what I was doing) I let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then I took a
scraper to it. No. Not a good idea. Barely scratched the surface. Considering most of the wax was at least 1/8" thick it would have taken forever to get down to the wood. Of course I can't sharpen a scraper to save my life. Yeah, everybody says it's so simple. I've watched all the YouTube videos, read article after article, but I still can't get a scraper to give me anything but dust.

Anyway, I used my knife to carve the wax back down to the wood and then used the scraper to finish taking off the rest of the wax. If you look at the close-up of the handle you can see at the far right the one place that the wax wouldn't stay even after a second application. I suspect that is more the fault of my carving than the fault of the wax. The wood splintered there, and I repaired it with CA glue. Next time I will apply sanding sealer before I start the chip carving because the end grain did absorb a bit of the wax. Not a lot, but more than I would like.

To sum up: I like the looks of the wax inlay. I'm seriously considering using wax to inlay my signature. I'm probably also going to use it in a limited way on some of my other love spoons. I'll do another Breton spoon like this and an articulated spoon*, just because, but that chip carving is really hard for me to see. Maybe I need better light.

I'm wondering how to finish a spoon with this much wax inlay. I suspect that even though the wax is apparently scraped off there is still enough in the surface grain to make the carved area absorb oil or whatever differently than the uncarved areas.

*Most Breton Wedding Spoons fold. There is a saddle joint just above the bowl that allows the handle of the spoon to fold down on top of the bowl. This made it easier to slip it into a pocket when you went visiting.

[AL...]

Bob that is fantastic
I realy like the wax inlay it sets the spoon off just right
The whole shape of the spoon is something else .. Looking forward to seeing more of the wax inlay work you are realy on to something there.
Thanks for sharing

Cheers
AL

Cheers

[David Stanley]

Very nice and another exquisite bowl on the spoon.

What I've often found works well as a scraper is a simple trimming (Stanley) knife blade. Re-sharpening just the one side on 1200 grit paper seems to give it just enough hook for scraping small work. Shards of broken glass also make (sometimes), interesting, useful (sometimes again), slightly dangerous scrapers.

[MackTheKnife]

Thanks, Al.

Oh, David, you just made my day! That suggestion about the Stanley knife blade is brilliant! Thanks.

[fly fisher]

Nice spoon Bob I like the wax idea.

[MackTheKnife]

Thanks, Richard. I'm really pleased with the way the wax inlay turned out.

[voluminous-viking]

That is so cool!

I had never even thought about something like this until I saw your post.

Let me see if I have the process down roughly in my head. You make the chip carving of what you want, pour hot wax (candle wax?) into the grooves, and cut off the excess? I'm sure it's a lot harder than I'm making it sound, but I think it's something to try out. Thanks!

Just as an afterthought, if you wanted to stain or seal the carving, would that react with or discolor the wax or anything?

[SLJ]

wow, thats a neat idea! looks great

[MackTheKnife]

It looks like you've got the basic concept down, VV. From everyone I've talked to I don't think candle wax will work for inlay. You need something much harder, like sealing wax. A lot of your questions can probably be answered in the following threads:
Wax Inlay
Further Adventures in Wax Inlay

If you want to stain the wood, you should probably do that before you do the inlay.

If you are working on a curved surface or any other place where end grain is exposed, using a sanding sealer before you carve should keep the wax from soaking in where it shouldn't.