The intarsia Teddy bear pattern is only twenty-three pieces and comes with an easy to follow guide. If you are new to intarsia like me and looking for a beginner’s project, the Intarsia Teddy Bear pattern is the perfect pattern.

After a few years of downloading every free intarsia pattern that I could find on the internet, I finally decided this past weekend to step out of my comfort zone and make an intarsia project. The pattern I chose for this project is a little bear named Teddy by Bruce Worthington and can be found at http://intarsia.hostcentric.com/home/e-book/teddy.htm

His website is located at http://www.intarsia.net/.

Bruce also offers two free intarsia e-books for beginners on his website. These include a step by step guide to making the intarsia bear pattern, Teddy, and also the intarsia Rose project. There are also other patterns available for purchase on his website. These are excellent guides for a new intarsia artist.

The links to the free e-books are:
Teddy Bear – http://intarsia.hostcentric.com/home/e-book/Intarsia101.htm
Intarsia Rose – http://www.intarsia.net/e-book2/rose%20shaping.ppt

What is Intarsia?

According to dictionary.com, the definition of intarsia is an art or technique of decorating a surface with inlaid patterns, especially of wood mosaic, developed during the Renaissance.

Dating back to the sixth and seventh centuries, intarsia is the practice of decorating a surface with patterns using objects such as glass, stone, wood, fabric, and countless other materials.

When intarsia is done with a scroll saw, it is most often with different species or colors of wood. Using the natural color and grain patterns of the different wood species, an intarsia artist can create a picture that is almost three dimensional. Intarsia is like a painting in wood.

For more information check out our page Intarsia Segmentation and Marquetry.

Give the Teddy Bear Pattern a Try

Ever since I started the scroll saw hobby, I have been fascinated with intarsia and have always wanted to give it a try. Until now I have refrained from trying intarsia because I was intimidated by it. The reason for this is that, with intarsia, there are so many different pieces to look after and keep track of like a puzzle.

On the other hand, fret-work is usually just one or two pieces which makes it more unlikely for me to get lost in the process.

I downloaded the intarsia Teddy bear pattern a long time ago and stored it on my computer. I wanted to try it but I kept putting it off until I felt ready to do such a project. The other day I was looking through some of the patterns I have saved, and I saw it and decided to give it a try.

What I did not know until a few days after I did the intarsia Teddy bear project is that not only was the pattern available on his website, but there was also a guide to go along with it. I wish I had realized that earlier because it would have made it so much easier by following his guidance on the first two attempts. After reading through this tutorial, I realized that I did a lot of things wrong but somehow I still managed to get it done.

Making the Intarsia Teddy Bear

Choosing the Wood

I started by looking through the boxes of scrap wood in my shop to find pieces of wood to use.

A funny story here is that I save almost every little piece of scrap wood imaginable. If it has even the most remote possibility of being usable, I save it in hopes of using it someday. The rest of the scrap pieces go into the burn box for our backyard campfires.

There have been nights when the family was sitting around the campfire, I would go to put some wood on the fire and have caught myself debating whether or not to put a piece in the fire. Asking myself what can I use this piece for. (Yeah, I think I may have a problem :))

Cutting the Pieces Out

Anyway, for the first Teddy bear, my wood choices were oak, poplar, and cherry. I chose 3/4 inch oak for the body, arms, head, and ears. I chose poplar for the inner ears, nose, and paws, and I chose cherry for the scarf.

For both Teddy bears, I chose to use a 3/8 inch dowel rod for the eyes. Each eye was rounded on one end, and then placed in a small glass of Rust-Oleum Varathane Weathered Wood Accelerator. This was used to make the poplar turn black.

For the first Teddy, I used poplar for the inner nose and rounded it by sanding. I then soaked it in the Weathered Wood Accelerator overnight using the same process I used for the eyes.

For the second Teddy bear my wood choices were cherry for the body, arms, and legs, walnut for the scarf and inner nose, and poplar for the inner ears and the paws. I also used oak for the outer nose.

Print Extra Copies

Once everything was cut out, I noticed that some of the matching pieces didn’t fit well so I had to re-cut them. It was fortunate that before I started this project I printed out several copies of the pattern. Eight copies for the first Teddy bear and then five more copies for the second Teddy bear. By the end of the project, I used all of the extra copies except for the master copy.

Sanding and Shaping

Once all the cutting was completed, it was time to put it all together as a dry fit to see what it would look like before sanding. I was actually kind of happy with it. After all, these were my first two intarsia projects ever so I was pretty excited to see them. I couldn’t believe it, they actually looked like a couple of teddy bears.

Once the few moments of celebration were over, it was back to work for me, because I knew I had a lot of sanding to do. First I started by rounding off all of the edges of every piece. I then sanded the matching pieces to make them fit better. I did use a rotary tool with a little sanding disk, but it was mostly hand sanding. It was with 80 grit sandpaper to start with then 120, 220, and finally 320 grit. This process took several hours to complete. It may have been much faster if I had followed the steps in the guide had I known about it.

Glue up and Finish

The next step after sanding is to put the pieces on a backer board. I used a piece of underlayment since I had it available at the house. The glue–up part is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. There are a few pieces that you have to add a shim to raise that piece higher than the rest to give it some depth, such as the nose and the scarf. This is to give it a look of depth.

Once the glue-up is done and dried, you can apply your favorite finish. My favorite is a satin polyurethane finish.

What Did I Do Wrong on My First Attempt?

I am only pointing out the mistakes I made so that it may help someone else avoid them. The biggest mistake was after I cut out all the pieces of the pattern and attached them to the wood. I then proceeded to cut out every piece individually in no particular order and then placed them all on the master copy of the pattern.

By this time I was feeling pretty good because it didn’t take very long to cut out all the pieces. It was at this point that I discovered why this was a mistake. Some of the pieces wouldn’t fit. Some were too tight and some were too loose. I tried to fix this by sanding each piece.

When doing regular fretwork, there are critical cuts that you have to be aware of; however, most of the time if you stray from the line, it is not usually too much of an issue and it can be forgiving. After doing some fretwork you just learn how to work with it and usually, no one but you will ever know about your mistake.

With intarsia, it seems that the matching pieces are a little more critical. I thought that I did a fairly good job of cutting precisely on the line; however, some of the cuts were just a little bit off. Because of this, there were several small gaps between some of the matching pieces.

Bruce Worthington explains this in the guide in chapter 2 and chapter 3.

What Should I Have Done Instead?

If I had known that a guide and e-book were available for the intarsia Teddy bear pattern, I would have followed it. I am certain that it would have made this project so much easier. It will guide me on my next attempt at this project.

Looking back, I think that the biggest problem was that I cut out all the pieces at one time and then tried to make them fit.

Following the guide, you would see that you should first cut out the head and body combination, then “position the parts.” This would have made the matching pieces come together much better. This would have eliminated a lot of sanding and also prevented some of the pieces from having a sloppy fit. Some of which I had to re-cut due to the sloppy fit.

Bruce goes over “position parts carefully” in detail in chapter three.

Conclusion

There are many resources available for intarsia nowadays, especially on the internet. For a beginner’s project, I enjoyed making the little bear named Teddy pattern available on Bruce Worthington’s website. I think you will enjoy this one as well.

This project is great for a beginner because it is only twenty-three pieces plus a backer board. It also includes with it a free e-book with step-by-step instructions and guidance on how to go about the process.

If you are like me and want to do an intarsia project but keep putting it off, I hope that you will try this teddy bear pattern. It was an easy and fun project. I have to say, I think it turned out pretty good for my first attempt at intarsia.

I know that Intarsia projects are intimidating at first. However, once I started this project I enjoyed it. If you give it a try you will find, just like I did, that it is much easier than it looks. It is also a fun and rewarding project that you won’t regret doing.

There will be many more intarsia projects coming in the future because I have now become hooked.

I hope this has been helpful and you have enjoyed your visit. Let me know, in the comments section below, if you have any questions.

While you are here, check out some of our other pages for information on
Scroll Saw Patterns
Scroll Saw Blades
Tips and Tricks
Scroll Saw Websites

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Thank You and Keep on Scrolling