Building Federal Style Table Part 4 – Oval Thistle Inlay

[Mike Allen1010]

The design of this federal table from a Fine Woodworking article by Steve Latta, calls for oval “thistle” marquetry inlays that go on the top of show side of the legs.

I’ve never done any marquetry before and the “how to” descriptions in the FWW article were confusing to me; requiring marking/cutting from the front side for “stack cutting” and marking/cutting from the backside for “bevel cutting”. Also used thin, commercial thickness veneers which required taping on the backside and also taping with veneer tape on the front side, each of which had to be scraped/removed at some point in the sequence, which I couldn’t figure out.

I followed “The Fine Art of Marquetry” by Craig Stevens. The primary difference was Stevens uses thicker (~ 3/16”) shop sawn veneer’s. The benefit of this approach (at least to me) is that the show side of the inlay is always visible. Once you simultaneously bevel cut the contrasting inlay piece and the background, you glue the inlay piece in place – no taping/scraping. It was easier for me to picture.

Bevel sawing requires a bird’s mouth. This is what I made from a plan in Steven’s book. The top surface can be rotated (he recommends 8°) so that moving the saw vertically up and down produces a 8° bevel on the edges of both the background and the piece to be inlaid –theory is should wedge together to fit more tightly



There are couple supplies/tools that were helpful for me: it really helps if you can get consistent thickness, shop sawn veneers. This gives you some thickness to play with when scraping the surface flush. A challenge is the “background” is dyed green, commercial thickness veneer. This means I might be able to scrape the, shop sawn inlay flush, but don’t have very much thickness to play with on the background. I glued another layer veneer, at 90° to the back of the green background veneer to get it more thickness and stability.

Graphite paper (not carbon paper) and a scribe from an art store let you transfer the design from tracing paper onto the work piece. You keep the tracing paper outline attached to the work piece so you can redraw the lines that get removed when adjacent, overlapping pieces are cut. Sand and an electric hot plate for shading.



One of the challenges is figuring out the sequence for sawing out each piece of the design. Steven’s says start with the background pieces and leave them oversize where they overlap adjacent pieces. Here’s the first couple pieces.











I used a Kew Fret saw and .02 blades. Because the depth of cut is limited, as far as I can tell the fret saw will only work for small pieces. I have a larger saw with a 14” depth of cut, but it’s a lot heavier and it was more difficult for me to saw accurately. A small # 69 drill bit makes the initial hole the blade is threaded through.

A red pencil highlights the line I was supposed to saw along to so I leave overlap for adjacent pieces. Took me a couple tries to figure this out.

[Mike Allen1010]

Here is Holly taped to the back of the design for the larger, lower leaf section. The grain of the Holly is oriented at a 45° angle from the main stem – I guess that’s supposed to make the leaf look more like a lifelike. - I’m just following the directions.
Regular masking tape worked much better for me than blue painters tape. You really need the piece to stay in place while you’re sawing. Halfway through I ran out of masking tape and had to switch – that didn’t go so well.



Drilling the hole in an adjacent, overlapping piece so the drill hole will be hidden.





Threading the blade and the sawn leaf.







The pictures are little out of sequence, but this shows a Holly leaf piece with sand shading. Center stem is a separate piece and the other half of the leaf.







Here’s the other leaf. Again the red line is supposed to help me remember where I’m going to saw. As you can see on the stem center of the right hand leaf, I failed to saw the correct line, making it wider than it’s supposed to be.




Here’s the first oval finished – as you can see didn’t come out great. I forgot to tilt the table the suggested 8 degrees, so no bevel cut which leads to the gaps. This first one took me about 6 hours and lots of Advil for the strain on my back bending over the birds mouth.

[Mike Allen1010]

This first one took me about 6 hours and lots of Advil for the strain on my back bending over the birds mouth.


Here’s the second one a little better.




I did the last two together, cutting out the same piece in both ovals before moving on. This really helped me avoid making the same mistake repeatedly and saved a little time.




Here are some pictures of continuing progress and the four completed ovals (not included are the first two attempts that I have gave up on part way through when it became crystal clear they weren’t going to look anything like the plan). I still need to glue holly stringing as a border around the outside of each oval – not sure how I’m going to “clamp” that while the glue dries.

[Mike Allen1010]

Inlaying the banding on the bottom of the apron.





Finally, mahogany crotch veneer from Constantine’s for the table surface. I’m not looking forward to doing the tabletop as there is significant geometry involved (that’s always trouble for me!) and I need to try matching the veneers in some kind of radial pattern. I’ve never done any kind of pattern with veneer and I’m only going to get one shot. Screw up potential is off the charts!!!




Next will be cutting joinery to attach the legs to the apron and adding a string inlay border. I generally prefer simpler designs and this one has lots of moving parts, which I guess is typical of the federal style. I hope it doesn’t end up too busy.

Thanks for looking.

All the best, Mike

[Jim Koepke]

Wow!

Someday I want to give that a try.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Nice work Mike! Coming along beautifully!

[Karl Andersson]

Very cool Mike, thanks for taking the time to photograph and write everything, then sharing it here. I think I'd have to stop my coffee habit for a month before dealing with all those fiddly little pieces! I like your eclectic taste in styles (or at least in what you decide to tackle) - it certainly gives us a good idea what's involved in a lot of the different American period's construction. So, do you do a whole room in a style ("...and here we have the Federal formal dining room") or complementary ones - like the Bahaus sofa next to the Federal sideboard and the Deco end table?
Karl

[mike holden]

Congratulations! Very well done!
Thank you for sharing this with us.
Mike

[Mike Allen1010]

Thanks guys I appreciate the feedback.

I like your eclectic taste in styles (or at least in what you decide to tackle) - it certainly gives us a good idea what's involved in a lot of the different American period's construction. So, do you do a whole room in a style ("...and here we have the Federal formal dining room") or complementary ones - like the Bahaus sofa next to the Federal sideboard and the Deco end table?
Karl

Karl, your question presupposes I have some influence over decorating/interior design at our house. I can assure you that is 100% not the case! The LOML is a very talented interior designer. Although her taste is fairly eclectic in a broad sense, when it comes to furniture she favors Louis XIV – lots of curves, veneer, inlay etc., and she's not bashful about exercising her veto power about anything I build going into the house, particularly if it's in the downstairs living areas.

I have managed to "slip a couple past the goalie" – a Chippendale lowboy, Greene & Greene blanket chest and a Pennsylvania spice box somehow made the cut. I also get to build stuff for my office and have a couple blanket chests in our bedroom.

Most of the stuff I've built over the last few years is for our two college-age boys; that's low hanging fruit because they basically need everything. I prefer simpler, early American styles and that's usually what I build for them. Each of them now have bed, dresser, desk, coffee table and blanket chests ( I think they mostly care about the hidden compartments.

We've been married for 30 years and over that time the LOML has acquired enough nice furniture for two families. That creates a woodworking problem for me; we're a year or two away from being empty-nesters and would like to get a smaller place – I have no idea what we're going to do with the furniture that won't fit.

My current strategy is to build furniture to replace pieces she's bought over the years. For example, this federal demilune table I'm building now is intended to replace a similar table we have in our entryway. I haven't actually received approval for that yet. I may have to wait until she's out of the house, switch the pieces and hope she doesn't object. "Better to ask forgiveness than permission" – right?

All the best, Mike

[george wilson]

Glad to see that crotch mahogany veneer is still available from Constantine's. In 1970,when I made the large harpsichord(not the spinet in the movie),I ordered some from them. I got several exceedingly dark reddish brown sheeets of mahogany crotch. Looks like Cuban! I still have several left over sheets of it. It went into the panels on the bent side,cheek,and name board of the harpsichord.

[Christopher Charles]

Looking good Mike! I too have found the Stevens book to be very useful for marquetry (though have not done much). Will look forward to your successes with the tabletop!

[Marty Schlosser]

Mike,
Thank you ever so much for sharing this with us. I was so excited after seeing #5, that I went back to review how you did those lovely inlays!
I just ordered Stevens book and am looking forward to learning from it and this thread before attempting something as challenging as what you've done here.

Congrats and again, thanks for your openness. It is helping me out by encouraging me to attempt such interesting work.

[Phil Mueller]

I missed this thread and read #5 first. Ok, I have to admit, when looking at thread #5 I thought, "I wonder where Mike bought those ovals". Shame on me. Excellent work, Mike!

[Bill McDermott]

Mike, Thank you for the posting and especially for the photos. It must be hard to stop and shoot while you are in the groove. I am learning a lot from this. Much appreciated. Bill

[Jerry Olexa]

Very nice work Mike.....Thanks for posting.