First true intarsia project

I have decided to finally bite the bullet and try my hand at true intarsia.  I have a few books I have been studying and I have decided to try the Lighthouse project in "Intarsia Woodworking Projects" by Kathy Wise.  It is supposed to be an Intermediate level project but I want to do something interesting and the Beginner projects didn't interest me.  There is a little family history surrounding lighthouses and ocean coves so this will mean something to the family.

I have been collecting some wood over time and so after I went to Fedex Office and made several copies of the pattern I sat down to figure out what wood to use.  This is a rather large piece at about 14" X 18" and about 50 pieces.  After deciding what wood to use I cut out all the pattern pieces and applied them to the wood paying attention to grain direction and keeping continuous grain on continuation pieces like the sky from one side of the lighthouse to the other.  Here is my progress so far.

I have used Alder, Red Cedar, and Ash for the sky pieces.  The mountain background is Walnut.  The lighthouse is Walnut, Aspen, and Cherry.  The water is Blue Pine or some call it Beetle Kill Pine.

I have decided to use Aspen and Cherry for the houses and house tops.  The rocks will be Walnut.  The land will be Green Poplar and White Oak.  I found a piece of Poplar that is very green so it should work nicely.  The windows will be a small piece of Madagascar Ebony.  I found a 1" x 1" x 12" piece of Ebony at Woodcraft for $12.00.  Pricey but it should last me a long time.  I will shim up the Ebony pieces with something cheap so I don't have to use as much.

This is the first time I have cut anything besides Pine and Poplar.  There is sure a big difference between types of wood.  The Alder and the Ash were very hard and the cutting went slower.  The biggest difference I saw was how you have to feed the wood into the blade.  You always have to feed the wood in a little from the right to get a straight line but I found the harder the wood, the bigger angle you have to make to the blade.  The hardest part was going from one kind of wood to another and having to adjust how you feed the wood into the blade to get the same cuts.

The cedar and the walnut were pretty hard too.  The Blue Pine cut about like regular pine but the Aspen was very soft.  It cut fast so I had to be careful not to push too hard or the blade would take off.  Even the sawdust from the Aspen is very soft and fluffy.

As you can see the hardest cutting part is yet to come.  Getting all these pieces to fit together will be a challenge.  What I have done already has been hard so we will see how it goes.