As this blog is supposed to be about hand dyeing and not marquetry, I'll try to cover the cutting and assembly as quickly as I can. The method here is like Boulle style except that there is ultimately only one layer. I say ultimately because for the initial few cuts there were overlapped pieces. Due to the size of the piece it was necessary to use five pieces of maple veneer to accommodate it and in the initial cuts these were overlapped to avoid unnecessary joints in the picture. The discard pieces can be seen in the photos in the previous blog entry but to save you looking back, here's an example. The pieces above and below the cut are overlaps that have been pulled out.

 

The packets, after removing the overlaps, are composed of one layer of 1/16" maple and two layers of 1/8" plywood (top and bottom). The cutting will leave kerf gaps but they will close up when the water in the dye swells the pieces. On to the cutting. In this one the arch and everything outside it are cut. The remaining packets have been placed in their eventual position. A you can see the face side of the maple is reenforced with veneer tape. I used it because it must be removed before dyeing and it requires less wetting of the veneer to remove veneer tape than the usual newspaper and HHG.

 

The grapes were interesting. I had to number them to keep track.

 

In marquetry precise line following is usually top of mind and the main focus of any cut. Here I took the opportunity to cut many of the lines "wiggly" and just use them as general guides resulting in a less rigid looking landscape. It was like skipping class. I felt quite guilty.

 

 

Here everything is cut except the grapevines in the left foreground which have been redrawn to (I hope) make them better suggest green vegetation.

 

Sorry I don't have a better picture but this is the whole piece, cut and assembled, seen from the back

 

After all this boring reading about all this boring cutting I guess you deserve a little peek at the next segment which will be where it gets interesting and a little more colorful.

 

That's it for today. Next up, dyeing …... or dying if it goes sideways.

Thanks for looking in.

Paul