More marquetry

[Mike Henderson]

Here's a marquetry panel I have in progress. The field is laurel burl laid in a half radial pattern, the border is mahogany, the banding is holly and green dyed veneer. The flowers are holly, the centers are bloodwood, the branch is cherry and the leaves are green dyed veneer. I especially like how the design stands out on the laurel burl background. I did the back in an offset radial match of drape mahogany.

Mike

Laurel-burl-tray-01.jpgLaurel-burl-tray-02.jpg

[Paul Saffold]

Beautiful work Mike.

[richard poitras]

Mike, another great looking piece… keep-em- coming!

I did sign up for the ASFM in February.

[Lori Kleinberg]

Just beautiful Mike.

[Ted Calver]

Wow! That's a great piece, but the masked creature in the burl background is scary. Must be a Halloween thing

[Indranil Banerjie]

Exquisite work! BTW how long did it take to make the left panel?

[Mike Henderson]

Exquisite work! BTW how long did it take to make the left panel?

I don't know - I don't keep track. But there's a lot of steps along the way. I won't try to tell you all the steps but many of them require time between steps to allow something to dry or glue to set. Also, the cutting out step can be tedious so I often do it in sessions, cutting out a part of the design, taking a break, and then coming back to do more. I do it as a hobby so I don't care how long it takes to complete the whole thing.

Mike

[Some of the major steps:

1. Doing the design (this often takes a long time)
2. Preparation of the veneer (I glue paper to one face to hold the pieces together after they're cut).
3. Preparation of the packet.
4. Cutting out the design.
5. Sand shading the pieces.
6. Assembling the veneer into a picture.
7. Adding the decorative banding and the border.
8. The whole "panel" is then covered with wide veneer tape to hold everything together.
9. Glue up.
10. Removing all the paper (this can be quite a job)
11. Sanding after the panel dries.
12. Finishing (this takes quite a while and a lot of patience)
I then make the panel into a tray so there more work to make the sides and finish them. Then assembly and final finishing.

[Aaron Boggs]

Beautiful work. I have been wanting to try something like this for a while, but I'm sure I will start much smaller.

[Edward Dyas]

When you glue up the marquetry, how do you keep glue from ozzing up between the veneer joints to the face?

[Mike Henderson]

When you glue up the marquetry, how do you keep glue from ozzing up between the veneer joints to the face?

I put a piece of plastic over the work, then a layer of heavy cloth (sail cloth), then a caul (a piece of MDF slightly larger than the work) before putting it in the press. I also have to be careful about how much glue I put on the substrate. But I want the glue to come up in the gaps between the pieces of veneer. The glue is a sort of brown color and it fills the cracks between the pieces, and is not very noticeable when the piece is finished.

But it's all in getting a balance - enough glue but not too much. Experience is the best teacher.

Mike

[Gordon Eyre]

Very nice Mike, you definitely have a talent.

[Edward Dyas]

The reason I was asking is I think I would like to try marquetry but I'm going to have to work out the glue problem. Perhaps it's the glue as much as anything. I'm using a powder resin glue. The problem I'm having is every time I glue a piece of veneer either don't get enough glue on and there are air pockets or I get too much and the glue comes up through the seams and goes latterally across the face of the veneer. The last time was a inlet banding on a table leaf and I glued the veneer and clamped it and a few minutes took the clamps off to look at it and there was glue about 3/8" each side of the seam. I had to remove the plastic and clean the glue off and when I re-clamped it the veneer slid a 1/16" so I had to machine the veneer off and do it over.

[Mike Henderson]

I've had cases where a small amount of glue came through a seam and spread out on the veneer - not much but noticeable. I was able to take a knife and carefully lift the glue from the veneer without leaving a problem.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

Really beautiful work, Mike...

[Mike Henderson]

Here's another panel that I'm working on right now, that I call "Tulips". Unfortunately the pictures are not that good. In person the design is really vivid with the contrast between the radials from the sun and the colors of the tulips and leaves. I also like the simplicity of the design.

The first pictures shows the overall panel and the second picture shows a close-up of the tulips.

Mike

Tulips01.jpgTulips02.jpg