THE ART OF MARQUETRY AND INLAY
By Anne Simpson
Marquetry
is the art of decorative veneer inlay. It is an ancient
technique first used by the Egyptians and reached its pinnacle
in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The
Custom Eucalypt banjos feature marquetry designs on the
resonator backs. There is a staggering array of beautiful
Australian timbers available in veneer form and we try to use
only Australian timbers.
The
process is relatively straightforward though painstaking. The
background is laid first (vacuum press) and the design cut
separately. The design, say a rose, is drawn on tracing paper
and transferred to the veneer with carbon paper using a sharp 4H
pencil. Each piece, petals, stems and leaves, is then cut out using a sharp
craft knife (No. 11 blade). Unstable areas of short grain can be
stabilised with sticky tape though not if you intend sand
shading.
For a
realistic effect sand shading is used. Black sand is heated in a
tin over a gas flame and spooned over the area to be shaded.
This, with practice, gives a graduated shading effect by gently
singeing rather than burning the veneer.
Once all
the pieces are shaded they are assembled into the final motif.
After the heat of sand shading some will need to be re-trimmed
to fit. Small pieces of sticky tape are used to tack the pieces
together and then on the reverse side small dobs of glue are
used to hold the joints. Once the motif is assembled it is stuck
onto the back ground in final position with sticky tape. The
outline is then scored with the knife, the motif removed and the
waste dug out. Easy enough when inlaying into veneer as there is
a ready made plane. In solid wood a router such as a Dremel is
best. The veneers are only 0.6 mm thick so if the recess is too
deep they will tend to sink. The motif is then pressed into the
recess – I use a sheet of marine foam covered in packing tape
and clamp this over the curve of the resonator.
Glues ?
Titebond 2, and hide glue have been used. The water based glues
give better joints I think – the veneers try to expand under the
pressure of the clamping. Superglue is fine for small pieces but
too brittle for large areas. Contact adhesive can be used for
the background quite safely if you don’t have a vacuum press.
Hide glue
has the advantage of not needing clamping – the motif can be
“rubbed in” but it can be difficult to handle and you need the
heater and double boiler pot. It is however a wonderful glue for
marquetry.
After the
glue has cured the next step is scraping the surface flush.
After scraping I use a dark filler to fill any voids (after all,
no-one’s perfect ). Then comes the final sanding through the
grits starting at about 180 grit and finishing at 400 grit.
Sealing the inside and the outside surfaces are done, then I
hand the whole thing over to Roger for binding and final
finishing. Then I eye off his stack of blank resonators again
because a new idea usually occurs to me half way through the
current project.
|
