We’ve got a weekend workshop on Boullework Marquetry coming up at The Barn the first weekend of October. Recently I made a batch of artificial tortoiseshell for us to use in that workshop, with at least two pieces for each participant. One of the exercises for the weekend will be to make another batch so that each attendee can make their own once they get back home.
My method is described somewhat in an article I will post next week in the Writings section of the web site, but here again is how I did it this time. Start with a flat clean surface with a sheet of mylar on which to cast the artificial shell on.
Cast out the material on the mylar,
then create the pattern. The upper row of scutes is made to mimic “hawksbill” turtles, and the lower row “greenback” turtles. Once that is firm, cast a second layer of polymer on top of the pattern to complete the composite, and you are done.
PS – I purposefully left out all the chemistry stuff. It’s in the article
PPS If you are interested in joining us for the course, drop me a line through the “Contact” function of the web site.
Last week I finished the photography for my next article in Popular Woodworking, about “The Butterfly” an innovative sawhorse-type accessory I invented for the workshop or even around the house. I think it will be in the June issue, but don’t hold me to that.
Thus far I have worked with Glen Huey at PW, but he is moving (organizationally) over to American Woodworker. I will miss working with Glen, but the way I look at it his arrival over at AW simply provides me another outlet for woodworking verbiage. I’ve already started pitching article ideas to him, including one about the Ultimate Portable Workbench I invented, and would like to build another one for the article. We’ll see if he bites on it. If not I will chronicle it here.
Last fall the good folks at Popular Woodworking very kindly asked to adapt and re-publish an essay I wrote for To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo On Marquetry, which they titled Hammer Veneering. It came out a couple of issues ago but I got distracted and forgot to put it here also.
Here it is.
As we approach the long-awaited debut of To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo on Marquetry, (my first documents for this project are over six years old!) it is worth reflecting for a minute on the unsung heroes for our completion, the tools that were integral to the whole project. Those tools were Michele Pagan’s lovingly assembled collection of French dictionaries going back more that 200 years. Notwithstanding the fact that French was one of the first Western languages to be standardized, the usage of words and expressions has changed over the decades and centuries. One phenomenon that Michele noticed was the change in dictionaries over time. In some early editions, the definition of a word would rank the likely usages in a particular order, but in the ensuing editions over 250 years, new usage emphases emerged while others receded and some disappeared altogether.
Once our remaining Roubo projects are finished in four or five years, it is unlikely that these precious word repositories will be retired. Michele now has a taste for the hunt for words, and she will keep on translating old time words on behalf of collaborators passionate about old time ways.
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