I’ve never done any original such inlay (only a couple of repairs)
but maybe 25 years ago I had the pleasure of observing the Tims
brothers demonstrate their craft at a Midwest Federation show in St.
Louis.
In addition to being blown away at the stones they used to
realistically represent “fur” and “feathers”, etc, there was one
remark they made that really stuck with me. After the inlay stones
were cut and glued (epoxy?) in place, the final surface grinding and
polishing “smeared” the fine silver cloisson (cell) walls over the
edges of the stones so that the result was that the stone/metal edges
all appeared to be perfectly fitted. Of course the fit has to be
very close to begin with for this to work properly. 
One of our club members (who was relatively new to lapidary and
metalsmithing) took classes with them after that show and became a
very skilled artisan, winning several awards for his own inlaid work.
Pam Chott
Carol, In addition to the Gems and Minerals article Dave talks
about ( I have it around here somewhere also) the April 77 edition of
Rock & Gem has a very good article by Bob Jones on the Three-D Inlays
of Jerry Cline. As R&G is still extant, this might be easier to
obtain.
Cheers from Don at The Charles Belle Studio in SOFL where simple
elegance IS fine jewelry! @coralnut1
Hi Folks,
I’ve been keeping my scanner and copy of Photoshop busy since
yesterday! I’ve got the reprint of the channel inlay article on my
Web site in two forms. One version is low resolution (75dpi), good
for viewing online. A second version is a self-extracting archive of
higher resolution (200dpi) JPGs to be downloaded and viewed and/or
printed on your own computer.
http://www.carolinaartisans.com/orchid/channel_inlay_intro.htm
Please let me know if anyone encounters any difficulty or has any
suggestions!
All the best,
Dave
Dave Sebaste
Sebaste Studio and
Carolina Artisans’ Gallery
Charlotte, NC (USA)
dave@sebaste.com