Club Meeting: 27 August 2025
Report by: Kieran FitzGerald
In his introduction the President banged his gavel and made out that the meeting was in fact a court hearing. Whether it was by design or totally off the cuff, Jon continued this theme throughout his demonstration to great effect.
Over recent weeks, Jon has shown some delightful bowls decorated with wooden inlays. Each week’s showing has been a more complex variation of the previous one. It was the story of the development of this journey that Jon was to describe to us tonight.
His journey began a mere 2 ½ months or so ago. He was intrigued with the potential for embellishing with wood inlays, and Dick revealed that he had a drilling jig for this purpose. (There was a story behind this, of course, but let’s not go there!!) Jon’s first instinct was to search YouTube for videos about bowls with inlays. The search returned countless responses on bowls with resin, a few with pewter, but only a couple on wooden inlays. So Jon basically had to design his own process and learn from his own experience as he progressed.
In typical Jon Pearse fashion, he took to the metal shop, and using Dick’s jig as a model, he built his own version of a jig in which to mount a power drill for drilling symmetrical holes around the rim of a bowl mounted on the lathe Drilling Rig For The Lathe. Responding to comments from the floor, Jon declared that his isn’t much bigger than Dick’s. Innuendo much.
Jon identified five main points which, from his learned experience, contributed to good results with wooden inlays.
- Using contrasting woods: For example a bowl from dark wood, with inlays of oak or kahikatea. Jon produced an experimental eggcup made from jarrah with rimu inlays. Although tidily made, the inlays were not overly noticeable because of the lack of contrast.
- Drilling accurate holes: Jon went into some detail about the need to drill the holes with the correct angle and depth. These factors will impact on the finished shape of the inlays (eg either round or oval), and the length of the required inlays. Exhibit 1 was Jon’s first inlaid bowl, in London plane with walnut inlays.
- Cutting accurate inlays: A firm fit is essential. Although Jon glues his in, others are experimenting with a press fit to eliminate the possibility of a visible glue line around the inlays.
- Indexing pattern. The index system built in to the lathes have some drawbacks. These include slop when locked into an index hole (if worn), and they are limited to 24 indexing positions which only gives you 2, 3, 4, 6, 12 or 24 evenly spaced inlay positions. Jon built a custom indexing disc (of course he did). Indexing System For The Lathe
- Design. Jon advised he is fortunate to be able to imagine his plan in his head, but best advice is to draw the plan for your project.
Jon continued by going into a bit more detail on some aspects.
- You cannot expect to drill accurate holes with a hand held drill. A jig to steady the drill and lock it in position is required.
- The model both Dick and Terry have is a Drill Wizard made by OneWay.
- The drill itself needs to have a mounting collar with which to secure it in the jig.
- The 3 key must dos are: Drill on centre, accurate angles and consistent depth.
- Holes may be drilled straight or angled. Jon recommends angled holes should not exceed 35° off square to the wood being drilled. Too much angle would mean that the holes would need to be drilled much deeper and you risk not being able to clean up the inlays on the inside of the bowl.
- Use parallel plug cutters to make the inlays, not tapered ones.
- Cut test plugs (inlays) and test holes in scrap to make sure the inlay fits the hole properly.
- Cut the inlays down the grain, not across, for strength
- Use a drill press to drive the plug cutter.
Jon’s next exhibits (Exhibits 2 & 3) showed inlays inserted vertically from the top rim, as opposed to horizontally through the side of the bowl.
Mapping out the locations to drill the holes is the first important step. This depends on the diameter of the bowl and what size inlays you are using. Jon’s rule of thumb is that the inlays should be spaced 3 or 4 times the diameter of the inlay apart. So 8mm inlays should be space between 24 to 32mm apart on centre. This is marked out on the bowl then a suitable indexing pattern needs to be found that will match, or will be close to these markings. In this example 3 indexing positions of the lathe’s built in indexing system matched the markings. This will produce 8 equally spaced holes.
Alignment of the drill is achieved by lining the drill bit up parallel with the banjo and using a rafter square to position the banjo at right angles to the lathe bed. The hole depth is set on the jig, the spindle is locked with the in-built indexing system, and the first hole is drilled. Release the spindle lock, turn the spindle 3 indexing notches, and lock and drill. Rinse and repeat until finished. Glue and carefully knock in the inlay plugs with a hammer. It is recommended to bring up the tailstock while installing the inlays so the bowl doesn’t get knocked out of alignment in the chuck. Leave overnight until the glue has fully dried.
Exhibit 4 was a bowl with 36 inlays of 3 different woods. The indexing plate in the lathe does not have enough indexing positions to manage this many holes, so Jon used his own custom built indexing plate, which incidentally Jon claims has over 1000 locator holes, each painstakingly drilled over 2 – 3 days. Jon described how he chose the positions and drilled the indexing holes using a rotary table, but I have to say it flew over everyone’s head except Reinhart’s, who said, or pretended, that he understood. The second part of Jon’s indexing system is a movable, 2 strut locking arm fitted to the bed of the lathe. This holds the indexing disc solidly in position. Have a look at Jon’s video for a full description (link pasted earlier in report).
Jon’s next two exhibits (Exhibits 5 & 6) showed more complex indexing. The first a bowl with multi different sized inlays in a cluster configuration, requiring locations to be drilled on more than one circumference. The final exhibit was a bowl with inlays within inlays. Obviously his custom indexing system was used to make these bowls.
The process of making the inlay bowls takes a minimum of two days, so could not be achieved during the time available for the demo. But Jon gave us practical demonstrations of some of the key steps in the process. First he drilled holes in the outside of a blank, and glued and knocked in the inlays. It looks better if the grain of the inlays lined up with the grain of the bowl. Then on a bowl that previously had inlays glued in, he used a multi tool to cut off the unwanted length of the inlays. You need to be careful not to abrase the bowl with the multi tool. Next with a bowl gouge he turned the last millimetre or two so the inlays were flush with the outside of the bowl. Then it is pretty much following the conventional steps to finish the bowl – hollow out the inside, sand the bowl and add a finish.
The last exhibit (Exhibit 7) was a spalted ash bowl with square inlays, turned and fitted at 45° to look like a diamond pattern. To make the square holes Jon used an 8mm mortise cutter in his drilling jig. He fabricated an adapter for the mortise cutters that bolts onto the drilling jig drill. The drilling jig can then be used to cut square holes.
Later in the year there will be an open day for ornamental turners, and anyone interested is invited to attend. And don’t forget there are regular meetings for ornamental turners on the last Monday of every month. Contact John Whitmore for more details.
After the demonstration Jon informed the Judge that his case was complete and asked the Court to rise.
The entire process is way too lengthy to give a full description in this report, but if you go to Jon’s YouTube channel there are several videos of him making the bowls which were exhibited in this demo. The Hobby Machinist NZ – YouTube
Of course if you like the videos, please like and subscribe. Cheers Jon, you can pay me later.