At the same time I was designing the Carousel horse fretwork, I also drew up a design of a full Carousel horse to cut using the intarsia method. I’ve had the pattern for months, got copies made of the pattern, and am ready to go! Have been ready to go for months! I just can’t seem to make that first cut and I’m not sure why.
Fear of failure? It would be the largest intarsia I’ve done, but I’ve done some difficult ones already.
Has anyone else run into this? Afraid to start a project that they want to do? What have you done to actually start?

Here's another version of Tweedle Dumb. The difference? This one was done using the intarsia method.

What's intarsia? Rather than using one type of wood and cutting the pieces out like a puzzle, Intarsia uses different types of wood, and each segment is cut independant of the other pieces. The grain direction is different for each segment. And in this case, no colors, dyes, paints were used. What you are seeing is the natural colors of the different woods.

I used leapord wood, satinwood, purple heart, blood wood, aspen (the green wings!) maple, walnut, oak, and a couple other exotic woods that I don't know the name of.

So - which do you prefer and why?

What is “Intarsia” ? Inlay?? Segmentation??

According to wiki, intarsia is a form of wood inlaying that is similar to marquetry. Which doesn’t mean much if you don’t know what inlay or marquetry is!

So, I’ll try and explain what I think these all are –
Wood Inlaying to me, is to insert 2 or more different species of woods together to create a pattern or picture. Inlay pieces are flat, with no raised portions of wood.
Here’s a wolf inlay I made into a trivet:


Marquetry is inlay done with veneer (very thin pieces of wood) where inlay can be done with thicker wood.


Intarsia takes the inlay theory into another dimension – 3-D if you wish! Each section of the pattern is cut from wood – choosing different species and using the natural grain and color to enhance the design. The sections are shaped, then sanded, then glued together to create the design. Some sections are raised or lowered to create a 3rd dimension to the article. Here’s a horse head that I made in intarsia:

Segmentation is done cutting the sections of the design from a single piece of wood, then shaping and sanding the pieces and adding height if needed. Rather than using the natural color and grain of the wood as in intarsia, in segmentation you add color using stains, dyes, and/or paints. A different horse head done with segmentation:


Coming up ~~ I’ll take one design and show some Work in Progress photos using both the intarsia and segmentation styles.