Parquetry Class Day 1

Last month, for the first time in many years, I was able to offer an Introduction to Parquetry class at Joshua Farnsworth’s Wood and Shop near Charlottesville VA.  We plan for me to offer the workshop again next year.

I had two exercises in mind for the students, all based on sawn veneer edge strips from boards.

The strips were then cut into identical 60-120-60-120 parallelogram “diamonds” or lozenges with a simple jig and a dovetail saw.

NB/ mea culpa – over the years I have attended and spoke at countless woodworking clubs and guilds, and invariably there is a show-n-tell session, and invariably they feature prominently some elaborate jig a member made to do this or that function.  (Yes I know I used “invariably” twice in one sentence.  That is a purposeful literary flourish.)  In the old days I would just roll my eyes and tell myself, “That’s not woodworking.”  Then we started the Roubo Transalation Project.  Turns out the world of the ebeniste’ was all about jigs and patterns.  To quote LBJ, “I reserve the right to be smarter than I used to be.”

Once the pile of lozenges got big enough, they laid out X and Y axes on a piece of paper to guide them then started assembling the composition by gluing down the lozenges to the paper with 135 gws hide glue.

Once the composition was large enough to cover the “field” of the substrate panel, in this case 1/2″ Baltic Birch plywood, the working face of the parquetry (ultimately the verso) was slathered with 192 gws hide glue, followed immediately by the face of the substrate panel.

Then the wo glued surfaces were brought together and clamped using another 1/2″ panel as the caul and a double layer of corrugated cardboard as a gasket.

Thus ended the first day.