The next step now is to clean up the rear of the veneer picture ready to glue it to the baseboard. So, remove any tape or glue blobs from the rear of the picture, give it a light sanding with slightly coarse abrasive papers (about 150 grit) and if you have a press or similar available have it ready.

If you don’t have access to a press there are a number of alternatives you can use, the first being yourself!

What I mean by this is that you can place a flat piece of wood sheet or anything wide enough and flat, on top of your glued and mounted picture and then stand on top of it for about an hour or until the glue has had time to “grab” the surfaces of the veneers and baseboard together. 

Another alternative is to sandwich your picture, glue and baseboard between two stout boards (put the picture and baseboard in a plastic bag to prevent any glue leaking out and gluing your picture to the “pressing” boards) and then place this sandwich between the jaws of several G clamps placed fairly equally around the assembly, this method works quite well.

Obviously if you have access to a proper marquetry press use that as it has all the requirements needed built into it.

But anyhow, as this lesson has been devoted to guiding you through the basics of making the preparations for selecting and cutting and assembling your first marquetry picture, we will come on to the finishing of your picture (that is the sanding, pressing and varnishing stages) in a later update of these pages. However if you feel confident enough to have a try at some advanced finishing methods have a look at “Horrie’s finishing secrets” by clicking on the following link: Varnishing with Horrie. (or the button below)

To help you with this tutorial we have enlarged the demonstration pictures and placed them in a small "movie" sequence to illustrate the marquetry stages a little more clearly. To view this movie just click this link "Tutorial Movie" (or the button below) (please bear in mind that because the pictures are larger in this movie sequence the page may take a minute or two to load into your browser).