Marquetry Jewelry Box

I built this jewelry box several years ago, before I started the Swenson Woodshop website and YouTube channel. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking about shooting video at the time, however, I did take some pictures with my cellphone to share with friends at work, and those pictures are the media for this article.

My first real interest in marquetry was in 2015 when I saw a display of marquetry decorated frames and furniture at a Pacific Grove Good Old Days craft fair.   I remember thinking I could learn how to do marquetry, and build some really nice furniture for a lot less money than that craftsman was asking for his work; these years later in retrospect, his work was not overpriced!   I remember going home that day and googling marquetry to learn more.   I purchased three instructional DVDs; Double Bevel Marquetry by David Marks, and Marquetry, and Decorative Veneering, both by Paul Schürch.   I recommend these excellent DVDs to anyone interested in marquetry, to compare and contrast two different approaches to creating marquetry.

With my new DVDs in hand, I sat in front of the TV and watched them several times before heading out to the shop to start cutting parts on my brand-new scroll saw.   Of course I purchased some new tools!   What self-respecting woodworker would pass up an excuse to purchase new tools!

In my continuing quest for education, I signed up that same year for a 5-day marquetry workshop taught by Paul Schürch, as a guest instructor at the David Marks school of woodworking in Santa Rosa.   I learned a lot, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being totally immersed in marquetry/woodworking for 5 full days.   This type of hands on intensive workshop can really elevate your skills.   A side benefit of the workshop was an introduction to the American Marquetry Society (AMS), an organization I joined, that has a quarterly publication filled with interesting articles and news about marquetry.   I also joined a local chapter of the AMS that meets monthly about 45-miles from where I live, although after several years, I have stopped attending their meetings because of the traffic nightmare coming home from the San Jose – South Bay area on Saturday mornings (it’s only a 45-minute drive up there, but 3+ hours trying to get home).

The artwork (motif) for this project, is a Paul Schürch design included in the booklet that accompanied his Marquetry DVD, and the box design is based on the Asian-Inspired Jewelry Box project published in the Dec/Jan 2016 publication of Woodcraft Magazine by Jim Downing.

Marquetry Motif

The first step in this build was to assemble the veneer packet for the motif.   The marquetry pattern (cartoon) was photo-copied / scaled to fit the area of the lid’s center panel.   The cartoon was then attached to a piece of chipboard using spray adhesive, taking care not to wrinkle the cartoon.   A second piece of chipboard was taped to the backside with a piece of blue tape acting as a hinge, to create the front and back book covers of the veneer packet.

For this project I selected the following 1/42-inch-thick commercial veneers.

• Background Camphor Burl
• Flower Pedals Holly
• Flower Centers Yellow Heart
• Leaves Green Dyed Maple
• Branches Swiss Pear

I selected the veneers based on color and grain pattern for each piece of the motif, and applied gum tape to the show face of each to reinforce the fragile veneers.   Each motif veneer was then positioned atop the background veneer, oriented such that the grain patterns would complement the motif design, and secured in place used several small pieces of blue tape.

With the motif veneers secured in place, the cartoon cover was closed, and the two covers locked in place relative to the veneers inside using pin nails.  I don’t have a photo of this process, but it involves shooting or hammering small pin nails through the packet, and then bending over the exposed ends on each side of the packet to clench the packet together tightly.   Looking closely at the packet in the photo below you can see the bent over pins scattered around the cartoon. The holes made by the pin nails are all in the background veneer, and will generally self heal with a little burnishing, and or, are lost in the noise of the burls grain pattern.

The next step was to cut out the individual parts of the motif using a scroll saw.   Again, I don’t have any photos of the cutting process, but it took me about 45 minutes to cut out 30 parts, and this was a fairly simple design with only 30 parts plus the background.   As you can imagine, the more complicated the design is, and the greater the number of parts, especially small parts, the more difficult and time consuming the project will be.   If you are new to marquetry work, this is probably not the time to ”go big or go home.”

I use a full baking sheet with a numbered grid that matches the parts numbering on the cartoon to keep the individual stacks of motif parts organized.   Don’t rush the gun and throw out the parts you think your not going use just yet.   I have had several instances where I had to go back to the stack, because I pulled out the wrong grain orientated part, and or, I screwed up the part I wanted and had to use another piece. I have added extra veneer to packets when I had parts I was concerned might not sand shade easily, so I would have an extra part in the stack, just in case.

With the parts cut out, the next step was to separate out each part I wanted to use for the motif, and sand shade those selected veneer edges that should have a shadow effect.   Adding the appearance of a shadow creates an illusion of depth, or a 3-dimensional effect.   The shadow is created by lightly burning / scorching the edges of the veneer using very hot sand.   If you look back at the original cartoon picture, you will notice that some parts of the motif have dotted lines along selected edges, indicating those areas that should be sand shaded.   As the picture below shows, I use tongs or surgical clamps to hold the parts as I dip the edges into the hot sand for a few seconds.   Depending on the shape of the part, I might also use a spoon to shape the sand to match the contours of the part, or even just use a scoop of hot sand in the spoon to scorch the veneer. You do not want to try this using just your fingers!

After each part is sand shaded, it is returned back to its grid.   Organization goes a long way toward preventing screwups!

With the sand shading completed, I re-hydrated each part that was shaded by adding a dab of water from my finger tip to the surface without the gum tape, and then placing them between my cutting mat and workbench to dry.   Putting them under the cutting mat, or under a wood block, keeps them flat as they dry, else they will tend to curl.   The next step was to stretch some blue tape across the cutout on the gum taped show side of the background veneer.   The blue tape holds the parts in place as I assemble the motif, placing the gum taped side of each part down against the blue tape.   Remember, the gum taped side of the parts is the show face, the side that will eventually be visible when completed.

There is another step in this process that I don’t have pictures of, and that is a tape transfer process.   The veneer motif will be glued to a substrate panel using a vacuum press, and I don’t want the blue tape currently in contact with the veneer show side to go into the press because the adhesive can transfer into the pores of the veneer under pressure, deep enough to cause problems when sanding and finishing the panel.   The adhesive on gum tape will not cause this problem because it dries hard enough to sand off, but the blue tape adhesive remains permanently tacky.

To avoid this potential problem, the blue tape must be replaced with gum tape.   To do this, more blue tape was stretched across the glue side of the veneer motif; this was to hold the motif parts in place while the blue tape was removed from the show face.   The veneer motif was then flipped over, and the blue tape on the show face was carefully peeled off, and replaced with moistened gum tape.   The veneer motif was then placed between a couple of weighted platens to dry.   Once dried, the blue tape on the glue side of the veneer motif was carefully peeled off, returning once again to the picture above.   Show face down, covered only with gum tape, glue side up, no tape at all.

Assemble Marquetry Panel

The next step was to glue the veneer motif to a suitable substrate.   I used a powdered urea resin glue for this application, and a ¼ inch Baltic Birch ply for the center panel substrate.

But before I mixed any glue, I setup and tested my vacuum press, and gathered the supplies shown below, in addition to the Baltic Birch substrate and another piece of Camphor Burl for the backside veneer.   There is a rule in veneering to always balance your veneer panels with a veneer on the backside similar to that used on the front side to even the stress on the substrate caused by humidity-based expansion and contraction.   This will occur when the glue is drying during construction, and seasonally long after the glue has dried.

With everything needed for the glue up on hand, I mixed up a small batch of the powdered urea resin glue.   Urea resin has a fairly long open assembly time (max open time. 40 minutes at 70° F), so for a small glue up like this there was no reason to rush or worry about running out of time.

I poured a small puddle of glue onto a piece of scrap plywood and added a some very fine ebony sawdust to the glue to make a black colored glue slurry, which I then applied to the glue face of the veneer motif with a putty knife, working it into the scroll saw kerfs and any other gaps.   I scraped off the excess glue, and verified there weren’t any glue / sawdust clumps remaining on the glue face.   I’m certain that about this point someone is asking “and you just happened to have ebony sawdust on hand.”   Well I did, because I have 8 baby food size jars filled with fine sawdust I’ve collected from resawing different species of wood.   I have those sawdust jars on-hand specifically for mixing with glue for projects, and or, repairs like this.

With the gaps filled, I spread an even coat of the urea glue on just the Baltic Birch substrate (picture above), and set the veneer motif in place on the substrate.   I then flipped the substrate over and applied an even coat of glue to the backside, and set the Camphor Burl backing veneer in place.   With both the front and back veneers in place, I slid the veneer assembly into the plastic bag, placed the piece of canvas on top of the plastic bag on the motif face, sandwiched the canvas and bag between a pair of top and bottom platens, and finally secured everything in place by tightly wrapping some clear packing tape around the front and back of the package.   The package was then inserted into the vacuum press bag with a piece of breather mesh on top, and the air was evacuated.

Urea resin glue is a thermosetting glue.   In other words, it sets up faster when heated.   I normally cover the vacuum bag with an electric blanket when using urea resin, and then put a moving blanket on top of the electric blanket to trap as much heat as I can in the vacuum press.   I try to get the temperature in the vacuum press up to about 100° F, at which temperature the glue will set in about 6 hours, though I usually give it a couple extra hours just to be safe.   The general rule for urea resin glue is the setup time is about 12 hours at 70° F, with the set up time cut in half for each 10° F increase over 90° F.   I have taken my vacuum press temp up to 110° F by putting a space heater underneath the press.   At 110° F the glue was rock hard after just 3 hours.   I’m not suggesting anyone try setting their glue that quickly, the higher heat can have other negative effects, and safety issues.

With the glue cured ( I waited 8 hours before removing the package from the press, and 24 hours to be fully cured), it was time to remove the gum tape from the show face to see my master piece.   When I took the marquetry class with Paul Schürch, he used a belt sander with 80 grit abrasive to quickly remove the gum tape and flatten the show face.   I’ve used the belt sander method a couple times, and so far, I haven’t destroyed any marquetry work yet, but I am always very nervous sanding on thin veneers.   In honesty, the last time I used this method I changed to a 100-grit belt.   It takes a bit longer, as the gum tape will load up the abrasive quicker, but I’ll accept that issue for the piece of mind that I’m less likely to sand through the veneer.   I only use the belt sander briefly to remove the bulk of the gum tape, and I start and stop the sander while it is in flat contact with the veneer..   DO NOT lift the sander off the veneer while it is still running! DO NOT attempt to remove all traces of gum tape while using the belt sander.   If you do either, you will probably sand through the veneer, or be dangerously close to doing so!   As the picture below shows, I switched over to a piece of wood with an adhesive backed abrasive to finish flattening and removing the gum tape, and then sanding blocks with successively finer grits. I also use a cabinet scraper without a burr edge, though it’s not shown in the picture.

Box Construction

The box was constructed of Camphor Burl veneers and Baltic Birch substrate, with Wenge trim and corner posts/legs. I have included a couple SketchUp images at the the end of this article to provide construction details, and my as-built dimensions.

The first step was to glue up the veneer panels for the four sides of the box.   This process was similar to gluing the marquetry motif.   Again, I used a powdered urea resin glue, spread only on the substrate material, then added the veneers and inserted the assembly into a plastic bag.   The bag was then sandwiched between a pair of MDF platens, and wrapped tightly with a couple pieces of clear packing tape to prevent any significant shifting of the contents under pressure.   There will always be a slight amount of hydraulic shifting when the glue is subjected to clamping pressure, so I always make these assemblies slightly oversize and trim / square them to final dimensions after they have fully cured.

The next step was to route an arch in the bottom of each side.   I first cut a straight reference edge on each piece, and then squared / rough trimmed the length of each to fit the arch routing jig.   I used a pattern cutting bit ground with a combination up-shear on the bottom, and down-shear on the top, that was centered on the side piece.   I made a rough-cut pass on each side piece, feeding the jig from right to left against the counter clockwise rotating bit.   I then added a 1/32-inch spacer between each side piece and the jig to push the arch edge out slightly for a final climb cut pass feeding the jig carefully from left to right.   This produced a very clean / sharp edge along the arch.

The next step was to glue a 3/64-inch thick Wenge edge banding to each arch.   I chose the urea resin glue again for this step to make certain there would be no glue creep over time, since these parts would be under tension.   The arch mold only holds one long, and one short side at a time.   So, to speed up the setting time for this glue up, I used a heating blanket on top of the clamping mold, and a space heater underneath the expanded bench vise.   With the added heater, the temperature got up to 110°F and the urea resin glue set in about 3 hours, although I still gave it 4 hours for good margin before switching out the side parts. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the veneer press with the blankets, and or, heater in place.

I waited 24 hours for the glue to fully cure after removing the parts from the arch mold, before I started trimming the edges of the banding flush with the sides.

With the arch edge banding in place, I turned my attention to the top straight edges and glued a 3/64-inch thick Wenge edge banding to these surfaces.   I used PVA glue for this application, as these parts are not under tension and glue creep was not an issue.

With the edge bandings trimmed flush, I gave each side piece a coat of shellac.  To keep the shellac off of the glue surfaces I inserted a wood strip in the bottom groove on each piece prior to spraying.   The sides still needed to be cut to length so those ends were not an issue.

The next step was to rough cut each side piece to length.   This was done on the table saw using my crosscut sled and an 80-tooth blade. I then used a shooting plane to fine tune the length of each piece, and verify the ends were square.

The next step was the Wenge corner posts/legs.   These were cut with a taper on the two adjacent outside surfaces using the jig in the picture below.   The leg blank is the length of two legs, plus some extra, that was flipped end for end in the jig to cut the tapers on both ends, prior to cutting in half to yield two legs.

I don’t have a picture of a leg being cut in half.   This picture was one of several additional legs that I made because I screwed up some of the legs.   Yes, I do make mistakes, and often enough to stay humble.

With the legs trimmed to length, the next step was to attach the legs to the sides.   This was done using 2 – #20 wood biscuits for each joint. The biscuits were cut about 3/4 length, with one long side also trimmed to narrow the biscuit, so a pair would fit the length of the joint (see biscuits in background of photo 37).   I setup some work holding stops and clamped the legs and sides into place with the inside surfaces down on the reference surface.   I put a 1/16-inch shim under the sides to offset the biscuit slot relative to the legs, so that each leg would have a small protruding corner inside the box.   My concern at the time was if the sides and legs met in a flush corner, some of the Baltic Birch might be visible if my joinery was not perfectly precise.   In retrospect I should have made the corners flush.   My joinery was perfect, especially since I used the shooting plane to square things up, and I did have the thickness of the veneer as a margin to hide the substrate.   That little protruding corner also caused problems later on when I decided to make a removable tray for the inside.   Next time, if I ever build this design again, it will have flush corners.   Live and learn.

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With the leg and side biscuit joint slots cut, I cut out a bottom panel and notched the corners to fit around the legs.   I wasn’t worried about notching the bottom into the legs to prevent any hairline gaps where the bottom panel met the legs, and these gaps were hairlines barely visible, because I planned to put a velvet liner in the bottom that would hide any imperfections.   I also branded the bottom panel with my makers mark, prior to spraying any finish on the bottom.   I didn’t need the mess that a heat bubbled or burnt finish can cause.  With these steps completed, I sprayed the top and bottom panels with shellac.

Some of these photos are not of the greatest quality. That’s what you get when you hastily use an older cell phone. I think I used a Galaxy Note 3 back then.

I wanted the finished surfaces to be smooth as glass, so I gave all the parts (marquetry panel, sides, and legs) a coat, or two, or was it three, I don’t remember, of CrystaLac grain filler and hand sanded them to 600-grit using a hard block.

With the sanding complete, I masked off the glue surfaces, and gave all the parts a couple coats of lacquer. It’s just a lot easier to prefinish parts now while I can wet sand interior flat parts, than wait until it’s all glued together.

Now it was time to start gluing the parts together.   I used PVA glue to join the legs to the sides, and the legs I had screwed-up by biscuit joining the wrong face, actually came in handy at this point as tapered cauls to simplify the clamping.   I think I’ll claim that I actually planned it that way, and they were just test parts.   LOL.

With the box assembled and fine sanded, I gave it a couple more coats of lacquer.

Lid Construction

The next step was to build the frame for the marquetry panel lid.   I cut four pieces of Wenge for the frame, and then a groove in each to hold the marquetry panel.

The frame parts were then miter cut to rough length, with a filler strip inserted in the panel groove to support the wood and prevent splintering while cutting. The rough miter cuts were then trimmed to a precise fit using the shooting plane.

With the frame parts precisely fitted, I prefinished the marquetry panel, and glued the assembly together using PVA glue.   I later used a piece of chipboard cut precisely to cover the marquetry panel, to prevent over spray on the motif while I sprayed the frame with lacquer in my final finishing step.

To provide some additional strength, and a decorative touch, I cut spline slots in each corner of the frame.   I used a home-made jig to hold the lid, and a 5/32-inch box joint blade for this step. The box joint blade cuts a square flat-topped groove.   I then cut some matching Wenge splines, and glued those in place.

When the splines were dry, I trimmed off the excess and flushed up the splines using a block plane (sorry no pictures).

I used a pair of Brusso stop hinges to attach the lid.   I have a set of their brass routing templates to simplify cutting the hinge pockets.   These templates are designed for cutting the hinge pockets in the box and lid using the same setup, as you can see in the picture below.   However, I removed the outside spacing tab on each template to help clamp a sacrificial wood spacer, the same thickness as the removed tab, between the box and the lid.   This was necessary to prevent splintering where the rotating bit exits wood fibers not held under compression by a backing surface.   If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the screws are missing on the outside of each template.

That’s all the pictures I have of the jewelry box build.   The final steps involved spraying more lacquer, wet sanding all surfaces through 1200 grit, installing the hinges, and a velvet bottom liner.   I also subsequently made a removable tray from some figured maple, which you can see in the above picture sitting stacked under the tissue box, and installed a couple cleats inside to support the tray.

I think it turned out quite nice, and the only complaint I’ve received so far, is “it’s not big enough.”   Maybe there’s a reason I didn’t make it any bigger.   What’s that saying “nature abhors a vacuum”, well so does my wallet!