Treasure Box III - Post #3: New Marquetry Workshop

One of the reason it has been difficult to keep this blog updated is that my life has slightly changed in the past months.

My wife is now manager of a 19th century french painting gallery in LA.
For years she has been living between LA and San Diego for her research and work, we have to switch and I am now the traveling spouse.

For this reason one part of the workshop that I can easily bring with me is the marquetry workshop. I had my chevalet in my first apartment living room in France, it is the case again.

We have been lucky to find a small guest house with a large enough living space so that I can use a corner of it without any problem , and the light is great. I can also do my shading outdoor which is a great option, as per usual, I ended up doing the shading during a heatwave.

So I can now draw in LA, do my prep work in San Diego, assemble packs etc

I have got a nice light to cut and a good coffee machine.

Shade and assemble in LA also

Then the marquetry can be brought glued on paper just kept under clamp to San Diego, where Gigi can take possession of them for quality control.

So overall it works!

Deco Cabinet

Couple months ago, we were contacted by a designer in LA to create a deco cabinet inspired by an elevator door in LA.

At first we worked on a trompe-l'oeil concept

Then with the deigner, we upgraded to real volume pilaster with brass rods

Patrick had bought a beautiful american walnut board in the 70's and it was the perfect piece in color and width for this project. It was big enough to make a solid top, solid edges for the doors shelves etc and saw the rest into veneer for the front and sides. Other materials would include spanilla, boxwood, ferréol and ebony sawn veneer, as well as pewter and brass sheet.

I sparyed some alcohol on the veneer to mimic the color of finish

Brass and pewter

Usually we build our furniture out of solid wood but in this case the cabinet was made with high quality birch plywood.

The marquetry elements were cut

The added challenge was that the metal needed to match the patina of other brass elements in the room. to avoid having chemical on the wood we decided to have the elements prefenished and install them later after the sanding. As I cut the elements in supperposition "Boulle" style, I had left over elements that we mounted in the marquetry and kept the final elements that recieved the patina aside.

Then the front marquetry was assembled keeping the walnut background grain flowing throught the all piece, including the kickplate.

The doors and the pilaster were veneered. For the pilaster we used ferréol a dark chocolate color wood on the front and totally black ebony for the side to create more volume.

Then the doors were sanded up to the metal

As we used liquid hide glue, Old Brown Glue, we used the reversibility of the glue to remove the dummy metal elements using heat and moisture. As the glue was still fresh we had only to use heat.

Once the elements removed

The cavity were cleaned

The finished elements could be inserted and glued with fish glue. Fish glue is the best adhesive for glueing metal on wood.

At this point I could not resist to spray some alcohol to have an idea of the overall effect.

The cabinet is glued and the door adjusted

The pilaster glued to the door and the kickplate veneer to fit perfectly the grain of the doors

The top is adjusted to fit the cabinet

The lower pilaster is then glued on the kickplate with liquid hide glue, Old Borwn Glue.

The brass rod can now be fitted in the fluting. We have installed some pegs in them that will be used to glue them to the pliasters.

Now, it is ready to be finished and delivered.

Treasure Box - Series #2 - Post #22: French polishing

All right!

Last stretch this week. We will have pro picture next week and I will post them for you guys as well of a video of the mechanism in action.

But for now! Lets talk about french polish

While finishing the fine sanding

I have been pushing forward the pore filling and the polishing of the tray so it could be sent to LA for the leather.

Then I started with the pore-filling of the all box. The top first with the pore filling of the outside and inside every other day. When it was pore-filled I started the polish of the inside first

In the meantime I carry on with the box body pore filling up to the point it is nicely satin

Then I installed the hardware for the top

And installed the top with the hinges in order to be able to finish the top without having anything touching the fresh inside polish

The back is raised on a wood spacer

And the front touches another spacer only on the brass latch

When the leather came back I was almost done with polishing

And then, you know the story, put everything together and reflect on the past 2 years getting that project done.

Pro pictures should be in next week to share!

And of course delivery for our patient, but I believe very happy, clients and collectors.

Cheers and I will post the pictures next week

-- Patrice lejeune