How do you do this?

Nope, they're a crosscut of a long glue-up. You're looking at end grain.

That and the profile should give you enough to figure out how it was done.

Dave Balderstone wrote in news:151020042120030786%dave@N_O_T_T_H_I_S.balderstone.ca:

You may be able to get a good idea on an alternate technique by looking at how marquetry is done.

Patriarch, who doesn't do marquetry, but has met some really good artists who do, and has seen some of their work.

Got some interesting cloisonné - style made with sawdust for my daughter at a show I did this year.

I don't see anything but face grain, which makes me think veneer. Puts us squarely in x-acto country.

"patriarch snipped-for-privacy@nospam.comcastDOTnet" Dave Balderstone wrote in

On 16 Oct 2004 03:14:20 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (JMWEBER987) calmly ranted:

Read the techniques/links on these sites, Mike:

At

I'll bet the individual pieces of wood are cut, glued onto paper, sanded smooth, and cut to fit the jewelry.

========================================================== CAUTION: Do not use remaining fingers as pushsticks! ==========================================================

Thanks to all for your replys. I was hoping it would be a simple glue/resaw process. Don't really wwant to learn a new skill. Quite overwhelmed by the irons I have in the fire already. sigh Mike in Arkansas

It's made from a few pieces of veneer, stacked together and cut with a jeweler's saw or a scrollsaw. Then the pieces are rearranged and reassembed on a substrate, and it looks like the sawkerfs are filled with some kind of black filler.

It's similar to marquetry, except in marquetry you tilt the piece being cut so that the sawkerf isn't seen in the end product. There's a really good article by Greg Zall in FWW, June 1995.

Marquetry is a pretty easy technique; here's an example of my fifth attempt at a marquetry inlay:

Hi Mike,

You can do this. Just take 3 or 4 sheets of 1/16" veneer, stack them and secure them along the faces with double stick tape. Then cut the entire stack more or less randomly with a small saw (a coping saw with a very fine blade would work).

Separate the sheets, reassemble the pieces from the different sheets, and glue down the pieces on a small piece of thin MDF, etc. If you wanted to get fancy, you could fill in the voids with colored epoxy and then sand it flat.

Nate

Fretsaw. Finer and quick to turn. Sandwich between ply to prevent chipping out. For one-offs, knife should do, however.

Thanks Nate and George. Very helpful specifics. Very much appreciated. I have jewelers saws since I also do silver work from time to time and thought that the wood effect with the silver made an interesting combination. Mike in Arkansas