Subcontracting Marquetry panels

Once in a while we are contacted to provide marquetry panels for other cabinet makers.

This is an old tradition for the french to subcontract the marquetry. We have at the American School of French Marquetry an early example of this practice. It is an intact 1874 panel shipped by french marquetry makers to american cabinet makers such as the Herter brother in New York.

This was and is still possible using the french technique of the assembly board where the marquetry is glued with hide glue on paper face down. After more than a century we had to add some gum tape but the marquetry panel still hold on the original paper.

Here is another example of couple marquetry panels I did for a guy back east, I kept some for myself.

Wood is the glue side and the paper is the face side holding the marquetry together. It already has mastic and is ready to glue down.
Once glued remove the paper with cold water, sand and finish as you like.

In 2011, designers in Chicago sold the idea of marquetry panels on kitchen doors, but there cabinet maker, was not confident with his marquetry skills and hired us to provide those decorative panels.

Working on a budget we proposed designs on the desired style which were approved prior to cutting the panels.

We used 2 technique, painting in wood, stack cutting for the medallion of the 2 ends of the central unit

And piece by piece for the outside of those central unit panels and the 2 different sizes door panels for the pantry cabinet doors. The pieces were shadowed in hot sand

and assembled in a custom dyed background. As the cabinet maker sent us his panel for us to veneer instead of us shipping the marquetry panel on paper and glueing it himself, we decided to use a sticky plastic to control a possible bleeding of the dyed wood. in fact, an unnecessary precaution.

We did a video for Old Brown Glue, the liquid hide glue we produce here at Antique Refinishers on veneering and we used that project

Couple pictures for the one who can’t watch video

Preparing the panels, applying glue

Secure the veneer and press it

Cleaning of the glued panels

Apart for the 2 end panels we had 2 short doors. So while cutting the background we had to pack one of 2 and one of 3 when we were done cutting the short background we remove the short pack and finished cutting the long one.

and 3 long doors, notice the extra element at the bottom.

Ready to be shipped and finished by the Chicago cabinet maker