Blood-red inlay fill needed. Recommendations?

[David King]

I have a strangeish request for a blood splatter inlay on a holly fingerboard. I have the splatter marks lasered out and am now ready to fill but I've got to get it right the first time. I was thinking I'd seal the grain with shellac first and then mix up some acrylic paints until I got a reasonable color (I've heard that this is a bit of a trick.) I would then fill flush the rest of the way with clear doming epoxy and do my radius.

Does that seem workable?

[Chuck Tweedy]

I expect that you will have wide swaths of blood - yes?
Then you better make sure that you get very good adhesion between you layers.
The acrylic to shellac bond is the one I'm thinking about.

[Paul E Buerk]

Reconstituted stone comes in a variety of colors, including red. I bought some years ago in sheet for to use as inlay material.

[David King]

I'd thought about the recon stone material but unless I can buy it in paste form It's not going to help me. There are hundreds of droplets of different sizes to cut and fit. I'm not getting paid for that unfortunately.

Chuck I wasn't aware of bonding issues between shellac and acrylic paints. Is there a better paint for this?

[Bob Gramann]

There's always Inlace http://www.inlaceonline.com/text/products/kits.html.

[Chuck Tweedy]

I don't know if there is with your particular paint.
"Acrylic paint" is a pretty generic term, so you better check what you intend to use.

[David King]

Chuck, That's a good point, I forgot about all the other permutations. What I have is artist's colors in tubes. It's WB and kind of rubbery if you get it on thick.

Bob the inlace stuff looks perfect, probably just polyester resin with some pigment to thicken it up a bit. I wonder if bondo would work as well.
Has anyone tried transtint in bondo?

[Paul Rhoney]

David, this is literally the first time I've seen you ask a question. I thought you knew everything!

[JC Whitney]

David - The lasercut recesses look really intriguing. PLEASE post a pic of the finished product... can't wait to see how it comes out.

[Chuck Tweedy]

I would go the Inlace direction David.
With the artist colors, I see several potential problems:
- Adhesion to the sealer (AKA shellac)
- Having a rubbery layer in the middle of your sandwich
- Discoloration of the epoxy over time, killing the red color

[Steve Senseney]

I have used epoxy with black pigment to fill rosettes.

I don't know if epoxy with red pigment would work for your purposes or not. (or is the same as your resin that was discussed?)

[Mark Swanson]

If you do that, of course alcohol thins and mixes with epoxy so use an alcohol-based dye to tint the epoxy.

[John Sonksen]

I have done an inlay with acrylic paint mixed into system 3 epoxy on a table before. Besides a little shrinkage due to the large size (about 1 1/2" by 1/8" thick round hole) I haven't had any problems with it, and I made that table over 6 years ago.

Edit: I think I used knife grade epoxy, not system 3. It's used for filling joints on granite countertops.

[Michael Lewis]

Polyester gelcoat, any color you can imagine and sets hard. Talk to the guys at the automotive paint store, or a boat shop.

[David King]

Gel-coat would be great but I worry about the quantities it's sold in.
I wonder if corian joint filler/glue could work. I'll head over to the hobby shop and see what they have.
There's a white pigmented boat repair epoxy called marine-tex that I can probably color with transtint.
OK gelcoat repair kits exist in 2 oz bottles http://www.spectrumcolor.com/Items.aspx?key=cat&code=K

[David King]

Yesterday I tried an experiment using a 10 minute "gel" epoxy (thixotropic) and adding a drop of red transtint. I get a very dark red that's semi transparent. The epoxy had a very hard time hardening up. It's still too soft after 24H.
I'm going to the auto parts store to look for a tube of white bondo and some universal tint.

[Bob Gramann]

I've done the Inlace in white. It works. It sure smells like polyester.

[David King]

OK I finally found an online vendor for the inlace. Lots of false starts there as most of the storefronts had been abandoned.
It was available from a place called turtlefeathers.net

[Charlie Schultz]

I've bought inlace from here: http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/search?term=inlace

[Tony Costa]

Why not actually bleed on the FB and then seal that with lacquer? A little cut on a finger tip, a few flicks, and PRESTO!! Can't get more real than that. Of course, it will darken over time.....