I just finished an applewood spoon with a pewter-inlay design.
If
you want to know how it's made: first, you need to carve the pattern
into the wood about 4mm deep. The edges should widen slightly toward the
bottom so the pewter doesn't pop out. Next, you need to make a little
wooden "chimney" - a mold to pour the pewter. This mold needs to
be cut lengthwise so it can be disassembled later.
Place the mold onto the wood and thoroughly wrap everything around it
with masking tape to seal all the cracks. Pewter is a tricky stuff and
will leak through the tiniest gap.
Once everything is ready, you can pour the melted pewter.
When
the pewter hardens, peel off the tape and remove the mold. You can cut
off the excess pewter with a hacksaw, level it out with a chisel and
sand it down.
The dark spots in the photo above
aren't burnt, it's just glue residue from the masking tape. Either way,
it still needed a ton of sanding. Finally, I polished the pewter using a
small stone.
