Marquetry Foy Mr Father-in-law

[avengers63]

I'm going to make everyone's Christmas presents this year. I know this sounds a little bit Kindergarden, but it'll be a wee bit more sophisticated than crayons & construction paper. Knowing how much time this is likely to take, the sooner I get started on these dozen or so woodworking projects, the better.

The first thing on my list is for my father-in-law. He spent 27 years in the U.S. Air Force under the Air Mobility Command in the Air Weather Service. He was an A.F. meterologist. I wanted to honor him by making a marquerty plaque of his division badge. He has a love for wood and small woodworking items, so this is a natural fit fot him.

Recently, I bought some wood and veneer.I know some of y'all don't like eBay, but I just love it. It's been very good to me. Here's what I picked out to do the symbol with.

The color-to-wood translation will be:

yellow = cherry

white = maple

blue = walnut

black = walnut stained black

The whole thing will be inlaid into a square piece of bloodwood. Other options for the plaque were poplar & padauk, but the bloodwood looked the best.

I tell ya - this veneer is great. You can cut it with an x-acto. in two light passes, or one pass with a straightedge. My progress so far:

It's just sitting on the bloodwood for right now. I'll be posting regular progress as it comes along.

[Inisheer]

Not a guitar, but it looks like a nice little project. And nothing is wrong with making gifts, I've made stuff for people recently to. Have fun!

[avengers63]

Sunday was incredibly productive for me. My wive laid down for a nap around 1:30, then left with the kids from 4-7. That's right, I had over 6 uninterrupted hours to play!

I'm sure I don't need to tell you, but I will anyway... That fleur-de-lis was a huge PIA. I had to re-do each poece at least once. BUT, I learned a whole lot through trial & error. I don't regret the time spent. All the pieces are edge-glued with CA. I need to do some final shaping, then I can start cutting out the walnut.

I decided to not put the outline on the wind cup. I know that at this stage, I won't be able to make the round cuts consistentantly. I'd rather opit a detail than do it badly. The highlights on the cups turned out OK, though. Hopefully, there'll be more progress this week.

[freekhed]

Great work and looks like an awesome, meaningful project!

[avengers63]

I'm really learning a lot from this project. I found a couple of on-line tutorials which I read a couple of times. That, combined with a hefty ammount of trial & error, is making for a great learning experience.

Monday night, I divided the shield in half and stained the right side black. As it dried, I cut & fit the center dividing stripe. I had to leave the whole ting alone for a day as the stain dried.

Last night, after I fit the right side of the shield into place, I managed to fit the wind cup & 1/2 of the F-D-L into place.

At this point, with the exception of the F-D-L pieces, the whole thing is held together with blue painters tape.

You can see very small gaps where things aren't quite lining up exact in some places. Aside from re-doing the whole thing, does anyone have any suggestions? I'm thinking about either grain filler or trimming off "splinters" to fill the gaps. With grain filler, I'm a little concerned that it'll dork up the black, which is stained walnut.

[low end fuzz]

after you got some finish on it, rub in one of those wax sticks or putty, for a cheap quik fix; should be fine, as opose to cutting a fillet and 'plugging' it

[jmrentis]

Do you have a decent sized piece of cherry left? Try setting your project on a matching piece of cherry. It looks as most of your gaps have some surrounding cherry, so I think a backing of cherry may actually help these gaps disappear. Even the gaps around the dyed section are adjacent to some cherry such as around the right hand side of the sword, so that cherry backing may help those gaps become invisible. This would still leave the gaps though just be less noticeable, how are you planning on finishing this? I'd imagine you'd be forced to use some splinters to fill the gaps if you really need the gaps filled, sometimes in inlays you can use dust of the wood, such as by sanding some cherry, but generally when gluing up dust, it darkens and stands out more than you'd imagine. Anyhow, looking great and best of luck, I really dig this sort of thing. The one and only tattoo I've ever wanted is somewhat similar, more of a crest really, but similar concept of symbolic meaning and representation. J

Edited April 16, 2008 by jmrentis

[avengers63]

I have prpbably 20+ sheets of chery left. I was planning on attaching the whole thing to another piece of veneer with the grain going the opposite direction. I was originally thinking to put it on walnut, but you're right - cherry would make a LOT more sense given where the gaps are.

The reason for putting the whole thing on another sheet is purely for assembly strength. It'll make the whole thing a LOT stronger. It'll also allow the cavity it's inlaid into to be a little deeper. I'm thinking about margin for error. The veneer is only about 1/42 inch thick. I've also seen this suggested on marquetry tutorials.

I'm going to finish the whole thing with lacquer. The main reason is the gaps. If I use poly, I'll need to use sanding sealer first. When that's scuff-sanded, I'm concerned that the gaps might fill with sealer dust. That would look just gawd-offal. Lacquer is it's own sealer, so that completely eliminates the problem.

[avengers63]

It's almost readt to inlay into the bloodwood. I have the whole thing glued onto a piece of cherry veneer. (Thanks for the suggestion, jmrentis!) Woodweld is so easy to use! A little spooged through the gaps onto the face when I was putting the initial coat onto the piece. Fortunately, it cleaned right off with mineral spirits. I'll need to do a little gap-filling with some splinters, but other than that, it's ready to be inlaid into the plaque.

[avengers63]

I tried a couple of things to fill in the gaps. Carving off splinters? they looked like poo. Sanding dust? It all dragged out with the tack-cloth. Sanding also had the effect of stripping off the ebony stain. Did it get wiped away like the "filler" dust? Nooooooooooo... It filled in the grain on the walnut, cherry, and maple!

Typical.

I don't mind so much on the walnut & cherry. It actually accents the wood. The maple, though, just looks dirty. Sanding it out isn't working either. Lesson learned!

When I went back with a paintbrush to touch-up the stain that was removed, I stubmled accross one solution to the gaps. I filled them in with black stain! Problem solved.

So, after that was all cut out, snaded flat, and the shape was fine-tuned, it was time to rout out the bloodwood plaque.

God bless my Dremmel. I just love it to pieces. I routed the whole thing out, then evened out the edges & corners with a chisel-blade X-Acto knife. I needed two passes to get it to depth. I anticipated this. Better to be too shallow on the first cut. It's a heckuva lot easier to take out mor than it is to put some back.

The fit isn't too bad. There are some small gaps. Here's the plan: I'm going to glue it in with 2-part epoxy. When it's mixed up, I'll mix in some of the dust from routing the cavity into the epoxy. This'll turn it the appropriate color. Then, when it oozes out a bit, the gaps will fill in with the right color.

[avengers63]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get some pics and make an update. Here's the frame I made for it and a peek at the finished product.

The frame is made from flamed walnut. I brushed on a coat of sanding sealer, sanded it back, then rubbed in two coats of wipe-on poly, buffing with steel wool between coats. I'm going to leave it as is: semi-gloss.

I'd like some opinions on the plaque. The lacquer sould me fully cued next week. I have two options: 1) level it out and buff it with steel wool for a matte finish, or 2) level it out, wet sand it to 3000 grit, and polish it out to a mirror finish. What do you think?

[Bryan316]

Uber-polished mirror finish. Leave the flamed walnut alone and semi-glossed, leave the bloodwood semi-gloss as well. get the emblem shining like water.

You could give the entire emblem a solid thick layer of gloss and then hand-sand the bloodwood back to a satin finish. Mask off the emblem and start some light steel-wool work on the bloodwood.

Your idea has really come to life here! It's awesome that you didn't make it colored like the original emblem, just used natural wood to achieve the contrasts and kept it very organic and natural. Excellent work.

Edited May 5, 2008 by Bryan316

[anderekel]

I think it would be cool if you made the frame glossy and left the inlay part matte.