Marquetry & Inlay

Author Alan & Gill Bridgewater Publisher TAB Books Year 1991 ISBN 0-8306-8426-3 Purchase from Amazon MARQUETRY AND INLAY This is another excellent book to get started with if you are interested in developing your skills as a marqueter. It has a good introduction to the history and origins of marquetry, plus a list of tools to get started. I don’t think I had any other tools when I started as a teenager many years ago. The book includes a comprehensive glossary of terms with some excellent diagrams. (I have an extended glossary on another page.) The basic design of the book takes you through a series of projects. It starts you on a parquetry design which helps to get you using most of the necessary techniques to complete your first project. The second project introduces the curved shapes so you have to develop more free hand cutting of the curved shapes without the aid of a ruler. It also introduces you to the "window" method of pictorial marquetry. I use this method mostly for a number of reasons, but the main one being is that it gives me the most control as to how the picture is developing, particularly the shading and the direction of the grain. The following projects continue with these ideas plus introducing the use of the fret saw for cutting. Chapter 5 introduces you to your first compete Marquetry picture. It provides a step by step instruction on how to start and finish the project. This represents a good starting point if you have no other alternatives available to you. It is a good starter piece in as much as it does not have any complicated cutting requirements. It deals with only the simplest finishing techniques to complete the project. You will find that as you progress you will be exposed to additional techniques of surface finishing and framing. The project on decorating a jewel box introduces the very useful technique of sand shading. This you will find is used extensively in some of the more advanced and detailed pictorial marquetry pieces. There are more application projects which is then followed by chapter 12 on decorating picture frame moldings. Up until now, if I have framed a piece of work I have always purchased the complete moldings. However, they are very expensive (at least in Canada) plus this is one of the hot topics of debate. Some people argue that a frame detracts from the veneers in the picture. Others say it enhances the picture, complementing or emphasizing a particular veneer in the picture. The end result either way, is very dependent on the individual looking at the piece and art is very personal. If having made some progress through these projects and you are feeling you would like more of a challenge then the project described in chapter 13 is a good one. However, rather than making a fire-screen you can make it into a picture. (I think fire-screens have gone out of fashion these days.) There are many examples of floral pictures, motifs and boarders and this project serves as a good introduction. Finally, at the end of the book there are more examples of designs that you could use to complete more pictorial marquetry pieces. Alan and Gill produced this book in 1991, so it is reasonably current and serves as a good introduction to some of the basic techniques of marquetry and inlay. If you start with this you may find that you will struggle with veneer selection which will become more important to you as time goes on, A better place to begin would be with a kit where the veneers are already pre-selected for you. You will be more happy with the completed project and thereby more motivated to go on to your next project. In the Suppliers section, I have listed a number of places that will supply kits of pictures with veneers pre-selected. I don’t recommend the pre-cut kits as you will miss out on the best part of the work. One word of caution though, you should be aware that this is a very time consuming craft and art form. It is probably on of the main reasons why very few people in the world continue to produce marquetry pieces. From my perspective this just make me more determined to master the art of marquetry because of its UNIQUENESS.