My wife and I lived for two years in Shanghai, and we’ve always been drawn by the beauty of the Chinese characters.  These are necklace pendants with the Chinese character for “friendship”.  They’re among the smallest, most detailed inlays I’ve done.

The dark woods are iron wood, ebony and rosewood, inlaid with figured maple.

The second photo shows the process.  I use the CNC router with a .023″ bit to cut the cavities into the blanks (dark wood).  The piece to be inlaid (light wood) is then machined, but mirror image relative to the cavity.  The parts are then glued together, and after drying the excess wood is trimmed from the inlay piece, revealing the Chinese character.