Marquetry class with Paul Schurch

[Mark Tsujihara]

I just got back from a two day basic marquetry class with Paul Schurch at his shop in Santa Barbara. The class was sponsored by my woodworking club.

It was an amazing experience, and it will take me several weeks to absorb all the information that was packed into my brain. He's got a very fast and accurate technique and does stunning work. He was very generous with his time (staying well after hours to help us all finish our projects), and is extremely patient (especially with my newbie mistakes).

My wife had chosen a peony flower as the project she wanted me to do during the class. It was an extremely challenging project for me, seeing as I had never worked with a scroll saw or veneer before, and am just starting my woodworking hobby. Nevertheless, she is thrilled with the results, and I may get a scroll saw and vacuum press in the future :). She's already planning all the projects that will need veneering and/or marquetry.

If you have a chance to see him present a topic, or take a class with Paul, go for it. It will be worth it.

If I can, I'll post some pictures from the class.

[Richard Wolf]

Very nice work.

Richard

[Russ Boyd]

VERY nice Mark. To someone that's been procrastinating learning veneering and marquetry, your story is inspiring. Thanks.

[Mike Henderson]

That's just beautiful. If you like marquetry I recommend the book "A Marquetry Odyssey" by Silas Kopf. He shows his work, as well as historical pieces. It will absolutely humble you to see what people do in marquetry. And when you think that some of that work was done in the 1700's with hand made tools, it's even more amazing.

Mike

[Mitchell Andrus]

What are the veins in the leaves and petals filled with? Wood or tinted filler?
.

[Mark Tsujihara]

:::What are the veins in the leaves and petals filled with? Wood or tinted filler?

That's actually the urea formaldehyde glue coming up through the saw kerf during the pressing process. We used a brown drying glue for this piece, and it turned out pretty well I think.

[Don Morris]

Darn,

Too bad a Thousand Oaks, CA is so far from Potomac, MD. A little hard to get to the class on time. But I'd love it from the looks of your work.

[george wilson]

I like it when the marquetry,or inlay actually FITS,like yours does! Lots of parts in that 1 flower,too.

[Mark Tsujihara]

I like it when the marquetry,or inlay actually FITS,like yours does! Lots of parts in that 1 flower,too.

Hehe, I know. Everyone else had more woodworking experience than I did, and their projects had about 15 to 20 pieces. I had 30... took on more than I should have, to be honest.

That's the great thing about packet cutting marquetry (I think it's also called Boulle marquetry). Everything gets cut out at the same time, including the background, so it all fits like a glove as long as nothing shifts in the packet. It's also very fast, so you can bang out an impressive project in very short order.

[Mike Henderson]

Mark - how did you come up with the design for the flower? Did you just draw it or did you take the design from some place?

Mike

[george wilson]

If you search in the Neanderthal section in the FAQ part at the top,you will see a thread "A 17th.C.Italian Marquetry guitar I made.

[Mark Tsujihara]

Mark - how did you come up with the design for the flower? Did you just draw it or did you take the design from some place?

Mike

The design for the flower came from a piece of quilt fabric.

[george wilson]

I just remembered,my marquetry guitar is in the neanderthal FAQ section at the top of that section.

[Thomas Knapp]

I have a couple of Paul's DVD's and find them very helpful. It would be awesome to attend one of his classes. I live in Ohio though, and it would be an expensive proposition for me to go to California for a class.:( I'm glad that you enjoyed it!
Tom

[Larry Fox]

Mark - that is amazing, very nicely done. I do some work with veneers and marquetry (done well) is something that I have always been in awe of and just assumed was outside my range. Rethinking that based on your experience here.

[mike holden]

Mark,
The work is stunning.
You obviously have a fine touch with tools.

I look forward to your future projects with great anticipation.

It is clear that you are destined for great things.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

One more question, Mark. How do you insert the flower into the background veneer. Do you complete the flower and then tape it to the background and cut around the flower with a knife? Or do you saw the background veneer while cutting the flower pack. Since the background veneer can be quite large, I assume it's the first way but I'd like to hear how Paul Schurch teaches it.

Mike

[george wilson]

Mike,marquetry is generally done by stacking up veneers,and sawing through all of them at once with a very thin blade. then,the pieces from one layer will slip fit into the other,IF YOU held the saw squarely. Mark was using a jigsaw. For my marquetry guitar,though,I was using a freehand fretsaw with a 2 foot deep throat I made of yew wood. It was a challenge to keep it square,and not pop the blades.

[Mike Henderson]

Thanks, George. Maybe I need to see someone do it, but I don't have a clear picture of how the veneer is laid into the background. Let's say you had a fireplace screen which is large and flat. The background veneer is large and difficult to handle.

The image (maybe a flower with leaves) is made up of different colors of veneer. Do you make up a packet of the different colors of veneer, with the drawing on top of all of it, and attach it to the background veneer? Then saw all of it at one time? Then take the pieces you want to keep (different colors) and piece it together? That would leave a space (the thickness of the saw) between the pieces of veneer.

Or do you do the image first, then lay the completed, taped up, image on the field veneer and cut around the completed image?

Or do you cut each piece, one at a time, by laying it on the field veneer and cutting it at an angle so it fits well into the field veneer?

Also, many times a marquetry item is sand shaded, but when you sand shade, the veneer often shrinks so if you cut it first (before sand shading) it might not fit tightly after sand shading.

As you can see, I just don't really understand the process.

Mike

[Mark Tsujihara]

Thanks, George. Maybe I need to see someone do it, but I don't have a clear picture of how the veneer is laid into the background. Let's say you had a fireplace screen which is large and flat. The background veneer is large and difficult to handle.

The image (maybe a flower with leaves) is made up of different colors of veneer. Do you make up a packet of the different colors of veneer, with the drawing on top of all of it, and attach it to the background veneer? Then saw all of it at one time? Then take the pieces you want to keep (different colors) and piece it together? That would leave a space (the thickness of the saw) between the pieces of veneer.

Or do you do the image first, then lay the completed, taped up, image on the field veneer and cut around the completed image?

Or do you cut each piece, one at a time, by laying it on the field veneer and cutting it at an angle so it fits well into the field veneer?

Also, many times a marquetry item is sand shaded, but when you sand shade, the veneer often shrinks so if you cut it first (before sand shading) it might not fit tightly after sand shading.

As you can see, I just don't really understand the process.

Mike


The background is sawed at the the same time as the rest of the design. All the veneers needed for the design are stacked together in a packet faced on either side by the kind of cardboard you find in cereal boxes. Then the whole thing is pinned together in strategic places with a headless pinner, and the pins bent over and clenched on both sides to make sure nothing shifts while cutting.

We cut everything out on a scroll saw with a 2/0 blade. The kerf for a 2/0 blade is only 0.010 so it is not a lot of space to fill. Paul uses the saw kerf as a design element rather than trying to eliminate it entirely. We saw through all layers of veneer, creating multiple copies of the same image in different color palettes. Once everything is cut out, we separate out the pieces we want to use for our particular design, and go to sand shading.

For large projects the design is divided into multiple packets along major design features. In other words, the packet is not square. It would follow the cut line of a large leaf or something, and then the next packet over would be matched to it by hand.

Sand shading will shrink and bend the pieces, which is why it is important to rehydrate the pieces once they are shaded. Dip your finger in a little bit of water and just dampen the untaped face of each piece and dry them between platens. This makes them more flexible and they will bend back into shape and swell them back to their original dimensions. It does not take a lot of water, so don't soak the piece, just enough to make it damp.

It's really a fascinating process, and one of the most helpful things Paul taught us is how forgiving the whole process is. There are very few "fatal" errors" that can ruin a workpiece. Paul begins the finishing of his pieces by scuff sanding the veneer tape off with a belt sander and an 80 grit belt! Scary when you think how thin veneer is, but the veneer tape is surprisingly tough, and as long as there is tape on the surface there is veneer beneath it. I didn't think I could do it, but I managed, albeit almost getting a sand-through (one of the fatal errors :) ). Most veneer bubbles, cracks, and other problems are noticed in time to fix them and Paul's process makes sure that problems are detected before finishing.

It was a wonderful learning experience, and I hope to take another class with him later this year. He's so close it would be a shame not to :).

[Mike Henderson]

Thanks, Mark. Good explanation - I understand how it's done now.

Mike

[george wilson]

Mike,same sort of thing I did. However,on my marquetry guitar,the vines were very delicate,and LONG. They had to be reinforced,or they would certainly fall right apart just from the handling and vibration of sawing them.

I glued Caslon Vidalon tracing paper to what became the outside of each layer of veneer. This is expensive tracing paper fairly tough,but still thin. It is not plastic,just paper.

Then,I made little spots of glue that flattened out no more than 1/8" dia.,and glued the layers together. After sawing,I carefully slit the layers apart. you've got to keep the glue spots SMALL to do this. Then,the layers were interchanged,making the design. They were glued to a substrate,and the paper sanded off.

Luckily,I still had some old 1/28" veneer. This new 1/40" veneer is so thin,it's easily sanded through. You might have to resaw your own veneer to get decent stuff.