Welcome to the first of a series of Alf Murtell's marquetry themed tutorials.
Alf has been giving demonstrations and tutorials for over thirty years and has helped many marquetarians to learn new skills.
So now, please enjoy the first of Alf's tutorials: "The art of sand scorching".

Sand shading (or scorching), as it’s name implies, is the art of applying heat to veneer in order to achieve shadow and depth in circumstances where it would not be possible to attain the required effect by inserting a piece of darker veneer into the work.

Sand shading-scorching can be used to give a smooth gradual darkening which is often impossible to achieve just by “cutting in” another piece of veneer.

To demonstrate the overall effect, take a look at these examples of sand scorching (as we shall now refer to it) shown on this accompanying picture.

The Roses seen here owe a lot of their realism to sand scorching, for example, the depth and roundness shown in the petals, this couldn’t really be achieved with any other method.

It can also be used successfully for shadows fading into corners, or even for scallops and sea shells such as you can see in this other picture.

To acquaint yourself with sand scorching I would advise you to try experimenting with various veneers to see what kind of effect’s you can achieve. Naturally the best veneers for sand scorching are the whiter veneers, such as sycamore, ash, or holly, any of these veneers would scorch well, but if you wish, you can make use of other veneers. Mind you I have never had much success with the dyed variety of veneers, they never scorch with as much satisfaction as the whiter veneers do.

Now, we need at this juncture, to make some observations about the actual sand you could use. You can use either  coarse or fine sand, I have never found any real difference between the grades of sand myself, although some people do say that they think that coarse sand is the better, but the final choice is up to your own personal preferences.

You will want a pan to hold your sand, of which you will want a depth of about an inch to an inch and a half of the sand (approximately 2 – 3.5cms), you will also need a pair of pliers or tweezers and an electric stove (as an alternative you could make use of a gas stove or a “camping” or picnic type of heater). It will take a little while for your sand to heat up this will be roughly about 20 minutes or so. You will also be needing a spoon (a dessert spoon is ideal for this) but make sure it is not from your best cutlery otherwise you’ll invite a fair bit of domestic disharmony into the proceedings, because you will now need to place the spoon in a vice and squeeze the sides in so that the spoon forms a pouring spout (as you can see in this photo). This deformation will give you better control with the pouring of the hot sand.

I wouldn’t advise you to dip your veneer straight into the hot sand because you will burn it and you will have lost the desired effect, you will in fact have over burnt it. There are certain exceptions to this statement but I will be showing you them later on when I do the trellis and the basket weave demonstrations.   

Unfortunately with very small pieces you won’t be able to hold them and pour sand onto them, you will of necessity be obliged to dip them in the hot sand, but do be very careful and don’t burn them by leaving them in the hot sand for too long.

It’s time now for some practical work, I’ll just check the sand for heat by just letting some hot sand rest on the test piece of veneer for a few seconds, yes, that’s okay it’s scorching so I will turn the heat down a little. You will notice that scorching has been taking place at the sides of the test veneer, so we are now at our correct heat.