I was asked to make a domino set sightly different than the one that I had previously made. The main difference was the size. This was 3/4" thick, 3 1/4" wide and 6 1/2" tall. There was an additional inlay that I did on this set that was not done on the first set. The horizontal dark line between the dominoes proved to be more challenging than I had planned. I first cut the strips for the inlay and those were not all the same thickness even though the setup was all the same. This was a good thing because my grooving in the to accept the inlay was not all the same either. I am not saying they were off by a lot but it was enough that a snug fit on one was a loose fit on another. Then there was the ones that I would not even be able to beat the inlay in. Those are easy because I just opened up the groove. I was not off by much, about a business card thickness. I want to attribute it to blade wobble. I use a standard blade but ran the part through twice to center the groove. The second pass did not have a lot of meat to cut into so it may have taken the path of less resistance.
The specs on this project are pretty simple. They are maple with a walnut inlay. I finished them in lacquer. I spent a little more time on these then I do on my toys. Mostly for personal reasons. I wanted to see if I good get a nice thick smooth film finish. I did. They looked great. They have three coats of lacquer with sanding at 220, and 440 between the coats.
I also made a box for the set. I tried to make the length a close tolerance and the sides a little more loose. In hind sight I should have done it the other way around. The three coats of lacquer over 28 pieces made enough of a difference to make them tight. They still all fit and looked beautiful but it was tight enough that if the wood moved a little they would never come out. So I sanded the back side of all of them down and re-applied the finish. Now they fit great. Note to self: Need to think about finish thickness items.
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