Please bear in mind that the pieces on this page are "earlier" news articles and the format is rather "early style".
Also note that, although these are archive articles, all the links are still active for your convenience.
 

A message from our web master: We have updated our e-mail arrangements to provide a wider "contact umbrella" from within the editorial team at the RMG web site. Your e-mail will now reach all the team when you click the send button instead of just the one team member. If you would like to send our team an e-mail message you can either use the box on our "Contact Us" page or use this following link which will open a pre-addressed e-mail form for you: "e-mail message to the RMG editorial team".  You may also be pleased to know that our feedback page is now working correctly if you wish to make use of it.

After a long wait we have at last added another page to our "Meet the Group" series. We introduce you to three more of our illustrious marquetarians. For a short cut there click this link "Meet us Page 6"

We currently have several tutorials in preparation that we hope to be placing on our web site over the next few months. After "twisting the arms" of some of the more reticent members of the Redbridge Group we 'somehow' persuaded and cajoled them into producing some marvellous articles and tutorials for the RMG web site. Our Bill Kober, for instance, has written a wonderful piece describing the methods he used for producing an award winning picture which required careful matching of numbers of veneers in order to achieve smooth skin tones. Nice one Bill !! 
Every one of the other tutorials / articles appears to be extremely interesting from the preparatory notes that I've read - so as I say, the next few months promise to be very interesting on this web site - I hope you can wait until then to read them!

Bill Kober brought his pictures along to our group meeting on Wednesday and he gave me a "run down" of the methods he used for his "Nude Study" marquetry picture (which we mentioned above). Bill tells us how he achieved the subtle changes necessary for depicting skin tones with the use of veneers. To read Bill's instructions and to see Bill's pictures just click the button in our "Picture Galleries" menu page - or, for a convenient short cut, use this following link: "Bill Kober's Gallery" 

A cautionary Health & Safety tale. Just before Christmas 2004 a member of our group met a world famous wood turner who had suffered a health scare a year earlier. The health scare is suspected to have been caused by the inhalation of very fine sanding dust - we think this is a cautionary tale well worth the reading. You can reach this page from a link on our Health & Safety page - or you can use this short cut: "A salutary tale"

Well, here we are, our Peter Jones has kindly supplied us with a selection from some of his many marquetry pictures. You can reach Peter's page by clicking the link at top left on "Peters fine lines" page (which you'll find by selecting that particular button in our "Tutorials Pages") or, to make things a little easier, you can use this following shortcut: "Pete's article" 

We have added a small picture gallery from our Horrie Pedder's prestigious output over these past decades. Horrie has been a "Marquetry Man" for over half a century now and has in that time produced 'loads of' award winning pictures. If you would like a shortcut to the gallery just click the following link: "Horrie's Gallery"   

"Learn with R. M. G."  If you would like to use a shortcut to the opening page of this tutorial click the following link which will take you to the start of the tutorial on page 3: "Beginner's Tutorial"

MARQUETARIAN READERS you may have read the article in issue number 206 titled "Computer aided marquetry designs" describing the resurrection of a sad and sorry 90 year old photo into a presentable portrait. The high definition photos to accompany the article are now on our site, you can get to them by clicking the "Min & Fred" link on our home page, or, if you prefer, you can use the short cut here: Min & Fred  
 

Our Chairman Roy Murton has written a report on our new recruits progress at Redbridge. Just before you read it I would like to tell you that, as a beginner's lesson in marquetry, this article covers all the aspects of the art/craft that you are likely to encounter. Okay then? well here's your short cut, we hope you enjoy Roy's article: "Roy's Beginner's Report" 

To show you what a talented fellow our Chairman is we are including two more of his pictures for you to enjoy. You can reach them from a dedicated button on our "Galleries" page, or if you prefer, you can use the following short cut: "Roy's Marquetry Pictures"

Another improvement. The James Hawkey Hall photograph page now has the names of the participating Redbridge Group members added to it. So, in the future you will be able to identify those group members if you happen to meet them while you are enjoying a friendly jaunt along the leafy thoroughfares of Redbridge. If you would like a short cut from here, just click the following link: J. H. Hall Photos

You will be pleased to know that with this update to our web site, we have added several new articles that we think you will find very interesting. The first of these is an introduction to a group of new members to the RMG where we will be monitoring their marquetry progress in as near real time as it is possible to do on a web site. Our Chairman Roy Murton will be giving a monthly report on their progress, for a short cut to their introduction page click the following link: "RMG Beginners"

There's some new cartoons for you to enjoy on our Marquetry Mirth page. Many of the cartoons were first published in the Marquetarian magazine in black and white. On the cartoon page you can see those cartoons in their original glorious colours. For a short cut there just click the following link: "Marquetry Cartoons"

We much appreciate the messages and enquiries you have been sending us here at Redbridge, it makes the work that goes in to compiling this site very worth while, thanks to you all for your feedback and compliments. We would like to offer you a genuine heartfelt "cheers!" from everyone here at the R.M.G. editorial team, thanks!. 

You'll be pleased to know that we've added a seventh update to Roy's veneer descriptions pages. Roy has included some more of the scarce and exotic varieties of veneer in this update. Roy acknowledges the work of Bill Lincoln in the 1950's for the information on some of the virtually unobtainable veneers that are included in these pages. It is quite likely that some of the obscure and exotic rain forest derived veneers that Roy describes here are no longer available from their country of origin, or indeed, the species may have already died out, but Roy includes them here in case you may chance upon them and need a source of reference in order to identify them. 

You may have noticed that we have placed link buttons at the bottom of most of our pages. Those buttons, in their turn, link to the eight most important sections of our site. We think that you will find them far more convenient than our previous system. We have to give our thanks to Dave Abel of "C@TS" computer training for his invaluable observations and advice with this feature. We are pleased to include a link to Dave's web site on our "Useful Links" page - just click on the "Useful Links Page" button at the bottom of this page.   
 

One other new item: Well, it's not really new as such - it's an East London Group report from the early 1970's written by Alf Murtell & Derek Austin concerning the construction of the Hackney Town Hall Plaque and the progress of the Silver Jubilee mural.
That old East London Group eventually evolved into "The Redbridge Marquetry Group" a few years later on and is now the group that you know so well today.
We think you will find the report fascinating reading, we certainly did, so, for a short cut to the report, click this following link:
"Alf & Derek's East London Group report"  (please note that we have added more photos to this page)

You wouldn't believe how lucky we have been to have obtained some original copies of the very first editions of the Marquetarian magazine. To share our good luck with you we are displaying some extracts from the very first edition (number 1) within the esteemed pages of this site. There was a variation on the theme of the Marquetarian existing before edition number 1, but this was only a small "news-sheet" document - and definitely not the magazine proper. To read these extracts from Marquetarian number 1 click this link "Marquetarian No.1"

EXTRA: Alf Murtell found a photo of the actual group that oversaw the first National and has kindly made it available to us. It is a little "time worn" but we have given it a bit of a clean up and added it to these pages. You can see it from a link at the bottom of the "Marquetarian No 1" page as described above. Just click the above link to get there, it's fascinating!

Alf Murtell's latest tutorial is now available, to see it just click on the "tutorials" button at the bottom of this page or click this short cut: "Fragmentation"

Our Chas Baker has written an article for us describing how he makes his Marquetry Book-marks. They are a marvellous invention of Chas's and do make superb gifts for loved ones.
To find out how Chas makes these bookmarks click this link: "Chas Baker's Book-marks"

A very interesting article has been written by our Alan Mansfield highlighting the problems involved with the different cutting techniques required for cutting the USA sourced veneers and the much thinner veneers available in the UK. The actual difference being that our UK veneers are 1/64th of an inch in thickness, whereas the USA veneers are at least twice that thickness. This difference in density obviously demands a different approach to cutting the thicker variety of veneer. To read more on this subject click this link: "USA or UK veneers"

A Photo of one of our Redbridge Marquetry Group "round table" discussion sessions (where they confer over problems and enquiries put forward by other members of the group) has been presented to your web master here at the RMG. Click the following link to see the photo: "RMG's round table ensemble"

Have you ever wondered how harewood (that silver grey aged looking wood) is made? Well, our President Alf Murtell gave a demonstration of the techniques at one of our group meetings a few weeks ago - and we've recorded it for you and have now made it available on this web site. You will find a "button" for it on our tutorials page, or you can use the following short cut: "Alf's harewood tutorial"

On Wednesday 9th March 2005 the Redbridge Marquetry Group held it's annual group competition.

We are happy to say that we had more entries than usual this year, so it's thanks to all those hard working RMG members for providing so many pictures for the judges to scrutinise and ponder over.

We also offer our thanks to those excellent judges Duncan Richards from D. F. Richards (Veneers Ltd) and Dave Middleton the Chairman of the Marquetry Society for their invaluable judgement of our annual competition entries and their constructive comments on the displayed pictures and applied pieces.

A special mention must be made of the extremely interesting talk Duncan gave to the group regarding the sourcing and conservation problems concerning veneers - very enlightening and educational, especially, I thought, the veneer preparation processes and the flattening of warped veneers, very many thanks Duncan.  

Dave Middleton (left) the Chairman of the Marquetry Society and a member of the Chelmsford group, discusses veneer topics with fellow judge Duncan Richards from D. F. Richards (Veneers Ltd). 

The Judges at a marquetry competition have a difficult and onerous task to perform when making their decisions as to which pictures and applied pieces they think are the best in their unbiased opinion. How often have we overheard such remarks as "That judge must need new glasses"! when an adverse decision has been made in another entrants favour. So, to strike the balance, our Group Secretary David Walker has kindly made available for us the judging rules as set out by the Marquetry Society. For a short cut, click this following link: "Judging Marquetry Pictures" 
Please Note: Many years ago the judges used to make available "Standard of Perfection Charts" to entrants who desired them. These charts listed the judges opinions of the entries. To read a genuine one from the 1965 National Exhibition just click the above link.  
 

 A Very interesting article has been unearthed by our very industrious President Alf Murtell. It is of the construction of a Marquetry Donkey Saw. The original article (seen in The Marquetarian magazine 30 years ago) has been carefully re-written and adjusted for the web. We have tried to retain as much of the flavour of the original article as possible. The Marquetarian magazine by the way, has always been a superb source of marquetry information and projects and is, in it's own right, a very good reason for joining the Marquetry Society. To read this article click this link: "A Marquetry Donkey saw"
For information about the Marquetry Society & the Marquetarian magazine click this link: "The Marquetry Society"
Please Note: Alf has managed to locate a superb line drawing of a marquetry donkey saw which shows the saw from an advantageous angle. The picture is located on the 'marquetry donkey saw' page.
 

Please Note: As most of you will already know, our Redbridge Group editorial team has, since the summer months, taken over responsibilities for the Marquetry Society web site.
When you've been visiting that web site you may have noticed that during the last few days of each month (since September 2005) that the Marquetry Society web site has been displaying a message stating "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" instead of the web site.
The reason for this message is because the web site has attracted so many visitors that it has "crashed" the host server and prevented the web site from displaying. When this first happened in September we doubled the bandwidth capacity to prevent a repetition of the problem, but, due to the unprecedented success of the web site, it has even broached this higher capacity!
In the new year we will transfer the site to a very high capacity server system (similar to many commercial arrangements) and we will finally "put this problem to bed".
But in the meantime, if you visit the Society web site and that particular message appears again, we recommend that you visit this, the RMG site - or the web site of our friends in the Midlands, the Staffordshire Group, at http://www.staffsmarq.freeserve.co.uk
Both of our groups will keep you up to date with all the latest marquetry news, so make sure those addresses are there in your "favourites" lists.
 

Some of our very talented members of the Redbridge Marquetry Group have won themselves very high accolades and awards at the 2005 National Exhibition. We have picked two of our award winners for you to see in these pages, plus one very special picture which is the work of the Marquetry Society's longest serving member our own Tom Brewer. Just click on either of these following links to see the pictures:

"2nd in Intermediate Class" | "Very Highly Commended Premier Class" | "Tom's Picture"
 

We are pleased to be able to tell you that Tom Brewer's first picture has now been located and we have had a chance to photograph it ourselves. We were pleased to find that the picture is in surprisingly good shape considering its antiquity. Tom, by the way, is officially the longest serving member of the Marquetry Society.
To see this important picture of Tom's just click this following link : "Tom's first picture"
(By the way, Tom has also found the first picture he made after joining the Marquetry Society around 50 years ago. We are pleased to be able to include this notable picture on this web site. You will find it alongside Tom's first picture, just click the link above.)
You can also see Tom's other pictures in his own Gallery by clicking the "Picture Gallery" button below - or by clicking this short cut: "Tom's Gallery"  

Wine Cork Trivets - yes, indeed - this is actually a wonderful idea that Paul Rowe (one of our American visitors) has kindly allowed us to share with you. Paul has adapted Alf Murtell's trellis work to produce some unique trivets where you can have a great deal of fun producing the raw materials for the project. Just take a look at the photos to see what we mean.
By the way, why not make some as gifts - they would certainly be unique.
For a short cut to the page just click this link: "Wine Cork Trivets"  

A long lost picture by Horrie Pedder has been found and we are more than happy to be able to present it to you on this web site. The picture is a superb example from Horrie's rose study series and is worthy of careful study.
For a short cut to the picture, click this link: "Horrie's Rose Study"
To see even more of Horrie's pictures just click this short cut: "Horrie's Gallery" 

Fans of Spike Milligan and the Goon Show may like to read the article we've persuaded our Alan Mansfield to write describing the uproarious time he had with Spike when they were doing the initial preparation work for Spike's portrait, and the stages involved in making the actual portrait. That portrait was probably the last one done of Spike while he was still in comparatively good health and was fully endorsed by Spike. For a short cut link just click here: "Spike's Portrait"  

Because our tutorials and marquetry demonstrations pages are now occupying a large proportion of this web site we have decided to group all the links to the pages together on one master page in order to make your tutorial selections much easier to find. To see how easy it is to find the tutorial you want just click the 'Tutorials Pages' button on our Home Page, or if you would like to use a short cut from this page simply click the following link: "Tutorials Pages"

Some new additions to our site. One of these additions is Tools of the Trade for marquetry, where we display and describe the ultimate tool kit for the marquetarian, for a link click here: "Tools of the Trade"
Yet another addition is a page where you can find the right veneer for whatever wood based colour you need for your marquetry project, for a short cut to this table click here: "Veneer Colours Table"

How many of us never seem to be able to sharpen our cutting blades properly? Well, actually, me for one! Luckily we've managed to persuade our champion blade sharpener Dave Walker to write the definitive article on acquiring a keen edge to our scalpel blades. Do you know that I've been using an oil stone and pints of oil to sharpen my blades, but all I seem to do is just grind away the stone, so I can't wait to read Dave's article. If you would like a short cut click this link: "Sharpening your blade"

Our Vice Chairman Chas Baker has "had his arm twisted" by our Alan Mansfield into bringing some of his marquetry pictures along for Alan to photograph. Alan has lent us the photos for you to see on our web site. If you would like to take a look at them just click this following link: "Chas Baker's Pictures" Interestingly we have just added Chas's1989 Canadian award winning picture as an extra to his gallery. Just click the link added to Chas's gallery to see the picture (and  would you believe, it was only his 3rd marquetry picture!)

Another gallery has been added, and that one is our Tom Brewer's. Tom's spiral designed table is legendary in marquetry circles (sorry about that pun) and we are sure that you will want to see it, so, for a convenient short cut just click this link: "Tom Brewer's Pictures" 

In keeping with the preceding two items we are extremely pleased to be able to tell you that we have added yet another gallery to our web site. This gallery features the work of our President Alf Murtell and displays many of his applied miniature pieces. To view Alf's gallery you can either access it from the Gallery Pages directory button on our Home Page, or if you prefer you can use this following link: "Alf Murtell's Gallery"

If you are like me and you enjoy Horrie Pedder's marquetry work, you'll be very happy to know that we've added a few more of Horrie's pictures for you to study. The detail you will see in Horrie's "The Chequers" picture is astonishing when you consider that the actual picture content is only about A6 in size (roughly just over 6 x 4 inches or 15 x 10 cms approx) - a master of the art is our Horrie. To see the pictures, you can, if you wish, use this short cut: "Horrie's extra pictures" . There is yet another of Horrie's pictures added to this site which you can reach by clicking this link "Horrie's Waiting for the Tide"

As with the 'Tutorials Pages' links page mentioned above, we have included a similar page for the many marquetry pictures and cartoons we have available on our site. Again, as with the 'Tutorials Pages' described above, you can access this page from the "Gallery Pages" button on our Home Page, or if you would like to use a short cut from here, simply click the following link: "Galleries Links Page"

ANY MUSICIANS OUT THERE? Our David Walker completed a marquetry portrait of Sir Edward Elgar last year which he titled "The Master Music Maker" and he informed us that the music manuscript he used for the background is a genuine copy of one of Elgar's pieces. Several of us RMG members have suggested that it is in fact "The Teddy Bear's Picnic" or something of the same ilk. As I'm afraid that Dave is our only manuscript reader at Redbridge we have to take his word that it is indeed one of Elgar's works that he used. If a kind visitor to this site who has the ability to read a music manuscript can provide an answer to this conundrum for us doubters would they let us know if that rascal Dave is having a chuckle at our expense or was he actually telling us the truth? Click the following link to the gallery page containing "Dave's Picture"  and take a look at the portrait and then let the RMG editorial team know the real answer, thanks. A note from your web master: David hasn't shown me any of the feedback that he's received on this subject, so I must assume from his silence on the matter that he did indeed use "The Teddy Bear's Picnic" and he's too embarrassed to admit the fact! ......and he had told me that it was Sir Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1...hhhmm!!