Post #114975 by Aaron's Akua on Thu, Sep 16, 2004 1:57 PM

Alright, Prof. Benz came through! I knew you'd see this post sooner or later. Of course, you know this will lead to more questions...

Do you sand that marine varnish after every coat? Lightly with 220? Does polyurethane work as just well, or should I use the marine varnish? Can either of these be sanded between coats?

I have to confess that I still haven't made it through your entire post. I'm just going to have to keep track of where I left off, and tackle it over a week of lunch breaks. Same goes for that locked "Carving Post".

That was pretty clever putting the marbles through the back on your little maori guy. The eyes are so lifelike and intense.

My tiki is solid, so the inlay is going to be inserted from the front & glued down to the wood. The tile that I had cut for the inlay isn't all that accurate in shape, so I figured that I would carve the inlay spots a little wider than the tile and make up for the accuracy there. Then I'll fill in the gaps with some sort of colored grout (similar to the tile color) or other material to make it look uniform (does that make sense?).

The problem is, I'm not sure if the grout will stick to the wood. That would really suck if the varnish didn't hold it all together and the grout fell out later. I need some type of filler that could be colored dark blue or black to "fill out" the gaps around the tile and contrast with the adjacent wood. Maybe a black silicone product? But, would the varnish stick to this stuff when I put the finish over? I'm sort of thinking out loud here, but do you have any suggestions on this?