Inlay on curved cheekpiece?

[jtmattison]

I have an oval brass inlay I want to put in the cheekpiece of my GPR. The problem is the cheekpiece is curved.
How can I inlay this and make it look right?

HD

 

[rich pierce]

Anneal the inlay (heat reddish and quench in water). Make a form of hardwood curved like the cheekpice, but "in" (female, scooped not rounded).
Place the inlay in the form aligned correctly. Press on it with a spoon or dowel or broom handle etc to make it curve right. Generally I want it a tiny bit more curved as when i inlet it tends to flatten out. Now make sure you have filed some "draft" on the inlay, 5 degrees, maybe,so it gets tighter as it's pressed in (no gaps!).

Trick: clean the outside surface of the inlay and super glue a little block of wood to it. This will help you pull it out as you inlet it. later heat a tad and it will let loose.

 

[AeroncaTAL]

Great advise Rich. When I did the inlay on my GPR, I used a balpeen hammer and a large piece of pipe for a form to put the curve in. I would not recommend that technique! Next time I put in a curved inlay I'll use your technique.
Scott

 

[renovato]

That is great advice indeed. I was wondering the same thing as I ponder my Investarms build. I'm not going to do it to the GPR I'm working on, but I want to try my hand at inletting, carving, wire work, etc., on the Investarms. Thanks.

 

[Zonie]

I use three tools to form the inlays, patchboxes etc. to match the curve of the stock.

The first is a block of soft pine that I have formed a "hollow" area in. This hollow starts out on the face of the board with almost no depth and a large curve and gets progressively deeper as it reaches the end of the board.
The board also has a number of different grooves with various radii. It's ugly but it works. (see below).

The second tool is a 10 inch long piece of hickory. It used to be an axe handle and has nice curved surfaces.

The other tool I use is a rubber cushioned mallet.
I use it to whack either the inlay directly or to whack the axe handle which I've layed on some spot where I want a more directed blow.

I never use a hard hammer directly on the soft material. It will dent and thin the inlay making it (IMO) pretty ugly.