Chad Voller
02-09-2008, 6:10 PM
Here's my first marquetry project that I am finishing up on. It's of course the Eagle, Globe and Anchor for the US Marines. Made it with the intent to give to my buddy for his 30th birthday. I found the EGA on wikipedia, along with many other government logos. It's 12" in diameter and made of stained maple veneer.
I learned alot on this project, and can't wait for the next one. One thing was how to keep the tiny little pieces like the individual feathers from blowing out of the exhaust. And keeping the veneer laying flat. I put some hard drive magnets on the vector cutting table in strategic locations where the laser was not going to cut. Then I put a piece of cardboard on top of that to keep the small pieces from falling down once cut. Then I put on the stained veneer. I used thin washers over the magnets to hold down the veneer. Each magnet had about 5-10 pounds of holding force, so the washers held the veneer down nice and flat, even through the wood and cardboard. Removing the washers was as easy as sliding them to the side a bit and lifting.
The veneer still wanted to curl up slightly after being cut if there was no magnet in the area, and I ruined one piece when the laser head snagged it and ripped the whole sheet nearly in half before my finger actually hit the STOP button. Lucky I had extra wood. So I learned to send passes, and cut from the center out, pausing the head so it didn't cause problems, and then removing the pieces that were just cut. To do this I used masking tape and just laid it over the pieces, lightly pressed down, then lifted them up. I only lost 1 little piece that I had to recut. To reduce the rush of air over the cutting area, I just opened the front door just enough that the smoke and vapors cleared quickly enough, but not to the point of pulling small pieces up and out into the exhaust.
Putting it all together took forever. It would have been the ultimate puzzle if I didn't keep the pieces on the masking tape that was used to remove them from the laser. This made putting them back easy, but still time consuming.
I thought I was going to have a problem finding stain in blue. But lucky for me Menards can custom mix stain in many colors. The final marquetry piece was then glued to a 1/4" piece of plywood using glue paper that reacts to the heat press we have. We usually use this for paper and cardboard, but it seems to be holding nice and tight. It has no where near the pressure that veneer presses have, so there is little ridges in between each piece, like 1/64" or less. I'll have to figure out how to make a press for future use.
Next time I'm going to try and offset the lines for half the thickness of the laser so I can get rid of those little gaps. They aren't too hideous, but I think it would make it look much better without them. My staining skills suck too. Haven't had to stain anything since my shop class days in high school, so this one is slightly blotchy. I did try to vary the grain direction depending on the part, hard to see in the photo since the grain wasn't that tight on the veneer I got. But I really like how the light shimmers on the blue area as you move around. I wish I would have done something similar to the dark red areas to add more appeal.
Thanks for looking!
PS Sorry about the bad image. I took it after 2 light coats of laquer, and should have taken it before any coats so not to get reflections in the photo, oh well.
I learned alot on this project, and can't wait for the next one. One thing was how to keep the tiny little pieces like the individual feathers from blowing out of the exhaust. And keeping the veneer laying flat. I put some hard drive magnets on the vector cutting table in strategic locations where the laser was not going to cut. Then I put a piece of cardboard on top of that to keep the small pieces from falling down once cut. Then I put on the stained veneer. I used thin washers over the magnets to hold down the veneer. Each magnet had about 5-10 pounds of holding force, so the washers held the veneer down nice and flat, even through the wood and cardboard. Removing the washers was as easy as sliding them to the side a bit and lifting.
The veneer still wanted to curl up slightly after being cut if there was no magnet in the area, and I ruined one piece when the laser head snagged it and ripped the whole sheet nearly in half before my finger actually hit the STOP button. Lucky I had extra wood. So I learned to send passes, and cut from the center out, pausing the head so it didn't cause problems, and then removing the pieces that were just cut. To do this I used masking tape and just laid it over the pieces, lightly pressed down, then lifted them up. I only lost 1 little piece that I had to recut. To reduce the rush of air over the cutting area, I just opened the front door just enough that the smoke and vapors cleared quickly enough, but not to the point of pulling small pieces up and out into the exhaust.
Putting it all together took forever. It would have been the ultimate puzzle if I didn't keep the pieces on the masking tape that was used to remove them from the laser. This made putting them back easy, but still time consuming.
I thought I was going to have a problem finding stain in blue. But lucky for me Menards can custom mix stain in many colors. The final marquetry piece was then glued to a 1/4" piece of plywood using glue paper that reacts to the heat press we have. We usually use this for paper and cardboard, but it seems to be holding nice and tight. It has no where near the pressure that veneer presses have, so there is little ridges in between each piece, like 1/64" or less. I'll have to figure out how to make a press for future use.
Next time I'm going to try and offset the lines for half the thickness of the laser so I can get rid of those little gaps. They aren't too hideous, but I think it would make it look much better without them. My staining skills suck too. Haven't had to stain anything since my shop class days in high school, so this one is slightly blotchy. I did try to vary the grain direction depending on the part, hard to see in the photo since the grain wasn't that tight on the veneer I got. But I really like how the light shimmers on the blue area as you move around. I wish I would have done something similar to the dark red areas to add more appeal.
Thanks for looking!
PS Sorry about the bad image. I took it after 2 light coats of laquer, and should have taken it before any coats so not to get reflections in the photo, oh well.