Laser inlay chopping board with the xTool D1 Pro

Can you do proper laser marquetry, a wood inlay made with nothing but a laser engraver? In this quick, roughly filmed build I use the xTool D1 Pro 20W to engrave a pocket into an oak end-grain chopping board and cut a matching eucalyptus veneer inlay of a kookaburra, the Australian bird, to fill it.

Finding the right laser settings

The idea came from a test grid on an offcut. I noticed how deep the laser removed material at some settings and realised you could inlay something into that gap. I ran a test grid on oak to find the right engraving power, engraved the full design on a larger test piece to confirm it, and then ran a separate grid cutting stars from the veneer at different power and speed settings. Around 60% at 4 mm/s cut the 1.5 mm construction-grade eucalyptus veneer cleanly without charring the edges.

Making the inlay fit: allow for the kerf

The tricky part was getting the inlay to fit. A laser beam has a small but real width (the kerf), so if you cut and engrave the same outline, the cut piece comes out slightly too small. The fix is to add a fraction-of-a-millimetre outline to the inlay pieces. The kookaburra file I bought on Etsy only offset the outer edge at first, not the internal shapes. The breakthrough was importing the PNG version into xTool Creative Space, which lets you add an outline to every internal part at once.

Engraving the chopping board

With hours already sunk into the board, I raised the machine on its extension feet, framed the job from the bottom-left corner and set it engraving with air assist on. There was a little smoke staining, but nothing sanding wouldn't fix. Instead of the honeycomb bed I don't own, I cut the veneer on upturned bathroom tiles with cooling racks on top, which lets smoke escape underneath rather than staining the wood.

Gluing, sanding and oiling

After brushing all the dust out of the engraved pocket, I glued everything in in one go and tapped the pieces down with a hammer and block, which also flattened the end-grain peaks left by the engraving. I sanded with 120 grit while the glue was still wet, so the dust and glue formed a filler for any gaps, and then spent a good hour sanding the next day.

The moment of truth was the chopping-board oil. The end grain soaks it up fast, the oak darkens, and the pale eucalyptus kookaburra pops out of the board. For another laser inlay experiment, see how the laser coped with a bowtie repair in a cracked bowl.