On these pages Alf will guide you through the process of
making various geometrical marquetry pieces such as a chess board, some Louis
cubes and diamond pattern decoration. Alf will show you that, although the
finished pieces look complicated, once you've been taught the secrets, these
pieces are very easy to do and are very pleasing to the eye. So, do have a try
and surprise yourself with some new found skills. Okay then, over to Alf.
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"CHESS BOARD"
a tutorial presented by Alf Murtell
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A chess board is
something virtually everyone is familiar with, it is a design that has
been around for centuries.
Chess, I believe
started it's existence on the Asian continent many hundreds of years ago
and the design of the board seems to have been with us for at least a
couple of thousand years.
At first look it may seem to be almost impossible to
be able to achieve a consistent and uniform series of squares that will
fit together to make a perfectly geometric chess board, but when you
follow the instructions I am about to give you, you will see how easy it
really is, so let's start with the items and materials you will require
in order to make your chess board: |
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Requirements for making your Chess Board:
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Cutting
board with a lip on the long edge
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Set
square
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Template:
either metal bars or blocks of wood (these will actually be the "depth
guides" that will be used for ensuring the accuracy and uniformity of the
veneer squares you will be cutting)
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Steel
ruler
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Gummed
tape or Masking tape
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Veneer:
Two contrasting veneers, such as sycamore/mahogany – sycamore/walnut – two
shades of harewood, etc.
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Using
the templates which will be used to decide the size of your squares, place
these against the lip of the cutting board, place the veneer in position in
between the templates and place your steel ruler on top of the veneer and
butt it up to the templates, and by using the ruler as your guide,
cut four pieces from one veneer and five from the other (example A) the
length of each piece will be decided on the size of the squares. If you are
having one inch (approx 25 mm) squares you will need a minimum of nine
inches (229 mm) of veneer to allow for wastage. |
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Join
the strips together with gummed tape as in example B. With the set square,
square the short edge and place this strip against the lip of the base board.
Using the same template arrangement as in the guide notes above, cut eight strips (care is needed here as you are
cutting against the grain). Place each strip in position by moving every
other strip one square forward. Tape together as in example C. Now trim off
the surplus square. You will note that the accuracy of this procedure is
very dependent on using the "templates" to ensure the uniformity of the
squares, if the squares are not accurate the design will not work.
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Your
chess board is now ready for mounting on to the base board. You can add a
stringer or banding to give it a finished look, you can also add edges.
If you
wish to make geometrical patterns, cut diagonally across the square,
examples are shown in D and E. By moving the strips various designs can be
made. |
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Now that we have
covered the basics of these geometric techniques with this demonstration of
the chess board design, we will move on to a slightly more complicated
procedure which is the Louis cube designs. The Louis cubes really do give
an astonishing 3-D effect.
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