Mosaic

[wood carver 2]

Has there ever been a build along about making wood mosaics? I’m just wondering because I tried my hand at making one and after gluing it seems too stiff to bend into a curved profile.
Just wondering if I did it wrong.
Dave.

[Mike L.]

I did the same thing a few times, and I ended up gluing it up when I glued the riser; just lay the glue on thick on one side of the mosaic, add your middle pieces, then lay the glue on thick on the top, then put them together and work it back and forth.  Then when you get the riser clamped make sure you push from both ends to close all the gaps.  I’ve done 3 of them like that and had pretty good results.

[Mad Max]

You need to glue up all the stripe pieces to the riser at 1 time, top stripe. Like mike said
Then cut the riser again for  the second stripe, bottom stripe

I don't know of a build along.
Thickness pieces of .062 or less will do most bends
Maybe this will help.
This is 2 separate builds

blocks are 2x2x 3/4 and 2x2x 3/16
glue them together.


Resaw and grind to .050, these need to be sanded


Phenolic ground to .0375---total stack 1/8"



There is some info here but, same as I said
http://www.tradgang.com/tgsmf/index.php?topic=152514.100

[wood carver 2]

Thanks guys. The ones I made are about 5/32” thick in total. I thought that they would have a good bit of flex in them when it came time to glue up a riser.
I might just try Mike’s method of gluing them directly into the riser.
Dave.

[wood carver 2]

Here’s the first one.
There’s very little flex in it.
Dave.

[Mike L.]

I was looking for a picture of how mine used to snap.  I think the trick is to glue the center pattern together by itself using pieces big enough to resaw and sand down to thinner strips. I think that’s what Mad Max was saying that I didn’t understand before.  So that’s how they get the tiny little intricate pieces in between the bigger ones.  I’m glad you brought this back up, cause I didn’t get it when I asked about it a couple years ago.

[Mike L.]

That way instead of trying to get 3 pieces of laminated layers to bend with your pattern in the middle, you have enough surface to glue and then cut into four thin strips of just the pattern.

[wood carver 2]

I see what you mean. I’ll glue up a thick one that I can re-saw into flexible strips.
Thanks.
Dave.

[wood carver 2]

Ok, I just glued up a mosaic block and I’ll be cutting it into strips tomorrow.
Right after I finished it, I made a dumb mistake. The riser block I have was two inches thick so I cut it in two so I can make two risers and add I-beams to them for rigidity and to build out to the thickness I want. I was going to add my mosaic strips to the one inch thick blocks then split them and glue in the I-beams. Well, I got ahead of myself and split them before adding the mosaic. 🤬
So a question. If I cut an arc through the whole riser and glue in the mosaic, will the riser still be strong enough? I’ve made risers with glued in strips of thin, solid wood with no problems in the past, but I’m not sure about the tiny pieces of glued up wood.
Dave.

[4 point]

So from what I'm reading here no one is gluing a thin lam to the mosaic strip before gluing the riser up. Do you think that would be better or worse? That was my original plan because I was worried about the mosaic strip snapping. I angle cut the lams hoping to add a little more strength but I'm still worried about them breaking. I was planning making them 0.050.

[Roy from Pa]

I've been watching the awesome risers you guys turn out and been wanting to try a strip of mosaic in one of my bows also.

I also was concerned about the smaller pieces glued together snapping when bent into the curve of a riser...

I've thought about gluing the smaller pieces to the curved part of the riser before gluing the riser to the bow?

I could glue them on top of the darker riser section and they would be between the riser and belly of the bow.

I think that would work?

Mark?

[wood carver 2]

Here’s what I tried and it worked fine. I glued strips of wood of different thicknesses into a thick block. Then I cut the block into 1/8” thick strips that I ran through my drum sander using a backing piece of mdf. I also cut some accent strips of wood from maple and walnut and sanded them down to 1/32”.

In the picture you can see the original block that I glued up. It was much thicker. Next to it is a sanded strip that was cut from the block, a finished riser and a small glue up that will make tip overlays.
The riser was split in two and an I beam glued in after the mosaic was done.
All the cutting was done on my bandsaw with a wood slicer blade. The thinnest and straightest cutting blades I have ever used.
Dave.

[wood carver 2]

If my poor old brain would only function at 50% I would have mentioned that I glued the mosaic strip and the two accent strips into the riser at the same time.
On my first try, I glued the mosaic to the two accents first. That doesn’t work. It will not bend easily if you do that. The mosaic strip is pretty flexible, just don’t try and bend it too far.
Dave.

[Roy from Pa]

Thanks Dave, how did you get the thin strip bent in that arc, or did it do that on it's own after you cut it off the thick block?

[wood carver 2]

The extra strips that I cut just bent like that. Probably from the humidity. They’re pretty flexible as you can see in the riser. It could have bent a little more than that.
When I glued the accents to the mosaic first, I essentially made plywood. It’s very hard t bend into a curve.
Dave.

[Roy from Pa]

Ok thanks Dave

Your arc in the riser is very close to how mine look.

[wood carver 2]

👍🏻. It should look good.
Dave.

[Crooked Stic]

Wood carved you using the wood slicer resawing against the fence. I tried one and had no luck.

[wood carver 2]

I got very lucky with my bandsaw. It needed almost no adjustments when I bought it. It cuts very well using the fence. I can go very thin with my re-sawing.
I also tighten the hell out of the blade. 😁
Dave.

[Mad Max]

The radius of the stripes is 7.500 and 7.375 for this riser


This one is 1/8" Red phenolic  but it's done the same way
This one is the same as above, Do  2--.037 and 1 stripe .050
So glue up all 3 pieces and the 2 riser pieces 1st


Then cut the riser block again and do the other stripe same way.


After you get your patterns made and you have done this on a few risers it's pretty easy to do .