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Marquetry Tutorial

Adhesion & Sanding

Trimming
Once the veneer has been stuck to the wood the overhang needs to be trimmed off. You could just use your chisel-like knife, but there are easier ways. A hand edge trimmer like the yellow one seen on top of my router works quite well. I prefer doing this job with my router with an edge trimming bit. I find this gives the best trim.

Glue
When sticking the Marquetry sheet to a wood substrate there are several choices. For small projects like jewelry boxes I use yellow glue, a backer board and clamps. Place a piece of wax paper between the veneer and the backer board to prevent the two from sticking together. If the project is large I use a vacuum press and white glue as it gives me a longer open time. Vacuum presses are becoming very affordable these days so you may want to look into getting one for large projects. Small, hand pump units are available for around $60.

Hide glue is a good, traditional glue for marquetry and one you should probably try as it is very forgiving. If an area does not stick during pressing you can just add heat and pressure to the area again and it will stick. Contact cement IS NOT suitable for Marquetry. It will deteriorate over many years, shortening the life of your Marquetry masterpiece.

Pressing
As this was a small project I applied yellow Carpenter's glue to the wood and the veneer, making sure both surfaces were covered entirely, and then clamped it between two pieces of plywood with a sheet of wax paper on the board facing the marquetry. To hold the veneer in place before putting the clamps in place, just use a few pieces of masking tape. Allow this to stand for at least 6 hours or longer.

Sanding
Probably the most important thing I can tell you about sanding Marquetry is, SAND BY HAND! Veneer is very thin and it is very easy to sand through using an electric sander.

If the Marquetry has grain running in all directions, don't worry about sanding direction, just pick one direction and stick to it. Start sanding with 120 grit. Once you have removed most of the glue and irregularities, switch to 150 grit paper, sanding until all the scratches are out. Then finish off with 180 grit. Be very careful with the edges. Round the edges a little right at the end.

Finishing
I am not going to go into any detail on finishing as there is already so much information available on the Net. I have had good results with Jet Spray from Behlem, though it is a bit expensive for large projects. If you have a spray booth you can apply lacquer, which gives a lovely finish for most projects. Polyurethane tends to yellow so it will change the color of the veneer and personally I think it is an ugly finish. Tung oil, though it darkens the wood a little, also brings out the figure, making interesting grain features show up beautifully. I also like using Danish oil as it is a quick and easy finish.

And that's about it. If you have any questions please e-mail me and I will see if I can help you.