Now how cool is that Kevin!  Did you also glue up the walnut flower into the maple blank?  Please be sure to post up a few more pips

Yep... I did both... Can't wait until the glue dries so I can sand them down...

When sanding's done I will wood burn the details in...

 

 

I knew the glue was going to give the belt sander a fit so I slapped the project in the milling machine.

 

 

Not to bad...

A little wood burning....

First coat...

Awesome

49 minutes ago, Kevin Beitz said:

I'm having a hard time with the varnish... I keep sanding it down and recoating but I'm not happy with the finish...

Kevin those are looking good but I would have used lacquer and you could have been finished with those and gone back to the scrap yard for more goodies.!

Thanks... I'll try that next time...

Looking good there Kevin.

Kevin after you get the board flat by sanding and before any finish is applied you need to use a filler to bring all the surface up to the same height....your filler should be as close to the same appearance as the surrounding areas being filled. If you use shellac or lacquer they both will show all the flaws so this is a have to do if you want a specimen to show off...

  The worse part is if you used a wide blade in the scroll saw then any gap will show up whether it has been filled flat like all the rest of the area or not....So good luck..........

The gaps I got even with the smallest blade. I needed to make very sharp turns and I had to make room for the blade to turn.

This is why I was using varnish. I taped up the bottom to stop the runs and fill the cracks. I could have used epoxy. 

Any better ideas? One trick I've used over the years was to rub the sanding dust back into the cracks before I varnished.

This worked best years ago when I sanded my grandfathers kitchen floor. It looked great until I vacuumed up all the dust. I had

some floor cracks 1/2" wide. I dumped the sanding bag is dust back onto the floor and swept it all back in the cracks.

Then I took sanding sealer to the whole floor. After It dried I sanded again. Then I varnished. Turned out great.

Some epoxy and you are good.  I have used the sawdust trick and had it give me issues sometimes.  Epoxy, never a problem.  

If it is a tiny crack, mix some wood glue and mix in sanding dust.  Ensure you get more dust on top which will stick to the glue down in the crevice so when you finish, the dust will act as wood.  Otherwise, you get glue showing and then it is hard to stain.  

Better finish on these two...

Very cool work Kevin.

Now your talking Kevin. Its easy to see the difference in those finishes. 

  If you want to go the next step after the finish has dried good take 0000 steel wool with some Johnsons paste wax and go over it all with a good rubbing.