With no hot rod to work on and curling being stopped for now I was in need of doing something else. So after a break for a few years I am getting back into woodworking. I have tons of pattern for different projects, some good some bad some ugly. I have had this one for a few years. My wife knew about it but only mentioned it a couple of times as the hot rod takes priority. So it was dug out. Started with a pattern and a picture. This is an art form call intarsia.
From this I cut out different colours of hardwood. About 128 pieces total.
From here each piece is shaped. The idea is to make it look as real as possible. Some wood gets raised, some lowered. In all cases you need to think in 3 dimensions. After much sanding, shaping, re-cutting and fitting it was ready for a finish. Well not really. I ended up edge gluing smaller sections together after shaping to keep things together. Once it was all edged glued I then took a piece of 1/4" plywood and traced out the horse, cut it and painted the edges flat back to hide them. For a finish I was looking for something that as not glossy. In the real world animals are not real shiny either. Ended up using some satin polyurethane in a spray can. Put on 3 coats, then a light sand and one more coat.
Final pictures after my wife found a place to hang it.
Not sure why these 2 pictures are sideways but gives you an idea of the level of shaping required.
