REDBRIDGE NEWS & INFORMATION

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2008 National Marquetry Exhibition

This year's National Exhibition is being held at the Gladstone Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

The very friendly Staffs Group are your hosts for this National Exhibition - and they will be providing you with a with a wonderful and generous welcome.

For all the information you will need, just click the link on the right that will take you to 2008 National Exhibition page on the Marquetry Society web site.

Don't forget to return here when you have finished reading about the exhibition details >>>

Tom's Easter General Knowledge Quiz

After the success of his Yuletide general knowledge quiz, our resident academician the professorial Tom Brewer has put his learned brain once again to the task of testing our knowledge with 20 more of his tantalising "Tom's Teasers".

The difficulty of those questions he poses us really makes us think that Tom must, most certainly, be eating plenty of fish for his tea!

Click the link on the right to see if you can complete Tom's quiz without looking up the answers beforehand! >>> 

Veneer Examples Over Half of a Century Old

A short while ago one of our RMG members happened to stumble across a veneer sample book from around the 1950's.

The book seems to have remained unopened for many years, and as a consequence of this, it gives us access to more than 80 examples of over 50 year old veneers that have not been exposed to the damage of sunlight.

The veneers have all been carefully scanned and the results are now available for you to examine on our web site.

To see all 84 examples, just click the link on the right >>> 

International Woodworking Exhibition

The 2008 International Woodworking Exhibition was held at Alexandra Palace during February and proved to be very successful.

The Redbridge Group hosted the Marquetry Society stand on the Saturday - and the throughput and interest of marquetry minded visitors was beyond expectations.

To read a report, and see some photos of the exhibition, just click the link on the right >>>

A Couple of "Near Six Footers"

A visitor to this web site recently sent some photos to your editorial team of some marquetry pictures he owns that are near on six feet tall each!

The detail of the work and the veneer selection rather impressed us old codgers in the editorial team - and so, not wishing to deprive you, our visitors, of the chance to get a glimpse of these excellent works, we are including a couple of them here for you to enjoy.

Simply click the link >>>

Chas's Money Boxes & Other Pieces

Chas Baker has kindly allowed us access to his money box and silhouette archives.

Chas has made dozens of these marquetry pieces over the years, with the money boxes being particularly cherished gifts for each of his grandchildren.

Click the link on the right for a shortcut to Chas's Money Box & Silhouettes archive page >>

Yuletide General Knowledge Quiz

The R M G's very own "fount of all knowledge" Tom Brewer has, for once, been persuaded to put down his scapel and veneers for a few minutes and set his great mind to a completely different task.

Your editorial team has, as of one collective voice, requested Tom to make this a special festive season by compiling one of his legendary quizzes especially for our web site.

Tom, being the gentleman that he is, has kindly obliged us with a real corker of a quiz.

To enjoy this quiz for yourself, just click the link on the right, watch some of those questions though, as the answers are not always what you would first think >>  

Chas Baker's Musical Jewellery Boxes

As many of you already know, our Chas Baker is a wizard at making unusual gifts of a marquetry nature for his family and friends.

One of our Redbridge Group recently asked Chas to bring a sample of his famous "Musical Jewellery Boxes" in for them to study.

While Chas's attention was distracted for a few moments, our "tame photographer" craftily snapped a few shots of the musical box for our web site. We are pleased to bring these to you now. Just click the link on the right to see this superb musical box.

We hope to encourage Chas to write a piece about how he made them for a future update of this web site, but, for the mean time, please enjoy the photos >>

Early National Exhibition Galleries
New Additions for November

Our November update includes 1978's National Exhibition Gallery for you to visit (in a cyber-world fashion of course!)

We know that many of you really enjoy looking at the marquetry exhibits in the latest National Exhibition Gallery. But, what of those Galleries of yesteryear, what's happened to them?

Well, you'll be pleased to know that we have dug into the archives and unearthed "a lorry load" of National Exhibition photos from years gone by.

The photos from the early years are rather variable in photographic quality, but with a little help from "good old" Photoshop we have been able to make them very acceptable. Unfortunately these early photos were all taken in black & white, but to make them easier on the eye, we have given them a little sepia tint to warm them up.

Click the link on the right to visit the 1970 & 1978 Winner's Gallery >>

"1970 National Exhibition
Winner's Gallery"

Latest Tutorials & Demonstrations

Our Redbridge group members have been hard at it over the holiday break and have produced two new demonstrations and tutorials for you.

Dave Walker has once again produced another definitive demonstration, this one being on the Taylor method for producing convincing foliage on trees and bushes. But would you believe, this technique actually involves hitting your beautifully cut and mounted marquetry picture with a six inch nail and a hammer!!

But don't despair because there is a method behind this obvious madness - click the link on the right to find out just what it is all about >>

Our professional draftsman Tom Brewer has been persuaded to write us an article on the methods required to draw ovals and egg shapes with just bits of string, a set of compasses and a ruler!

Tom, being the gentleman that he is, has kindly written the guide notes and done the drawings for us, so all we've had to do is assemble the lot into a web site page - and then present it to you. Click the link to read Tom's article >>

"How to draw ovals"

The 2007 National Exhibition Gallery 

After all the waiting - here is the 2007 National Exhibition Gallery in all its splendour.

Although it is located on the Marquetry Society web site, we are happy to be including a link that will take you directly to Display Page 1 of the Gallery.

Display Page 1 opens up the Beginner's Gallery where the galleries proceed consecutively up to class 10a and then on to the "Selected Entries" Gallery. The "Selected Entries" consist of nearly three dozen exhibits that just narrowly missed gaining an award this year.

Every entry in the exhibition was easily capable of winning an award but, as there is only a finite amount of awards available to be given, there has of obvious necessity to be a limited amount of winners.

We are pleased to say however, that a little later on this year, all the remaining exhibition entries will be added to the gallery for you to appreciate and enjoy.

Don't forget to return here when you have finished visiting the 2007 Gallery by clicking our link on the "Links Page". Enjoy your visit. 

The 2007 National Exhibition RMG Entries

We are pleased to be able to bring you all 28 of our Redbridge Group entries from the 2007 National Exhibition.

The exhibits are arranged in 3 display pages (you have already seen the 4 winners from the link in the box below) and by clicking the link on the right, you will enter page 2 of the gallery where you will find 10 of our exhibits plus links to the other display pages.

Redbridge Group Winners

Redbridge Group enjoyed a respectable level of success in this year's National Exhibition competitive classes.

We had four winners, including a first in Class 2.

We have "snaffled" copies of the photos from the Marquetry Society gallery and we are including them here for you as a sort of "sneak preview". We hope you enjoy them. Just click the link on the right >>

(For April 2008)

2008 Easter Holiday

Apologies for the previous error with our Easter holiday dates. Although the Easter dates were correct, it appears that the educational authority who controls holiday allocation periods for our premises deferred the Easter holiday by 2 weeks this year to balance out the term times more conveniently. 

The Redbridge Marquetry Group will be taking its Easter holiday break directly after its last meeting for this term on Wednesday 9th April 2008.

We will be returning to our rooms to start our Spring/Summer term on Wednesday 23rd April 2008.

Although the group will be away from their rooms during that 2 week period, our web site will still be keeping you up to date with all the information concerning the RMG and its membership. Just keep visiting this site for the latest RMG news and chat.

2007 National Marquetry Exhibition

The 2007 National Exhibition was a wonderful success. We had so many visitors turn up to the exhibition that we ran out of our initial quota of catalogues by the end of the second day and had to have two more batches printed before the exhibition drew to its close.

We offer a big gratitude of thanks to our printer for burning the midnight oil for us on those two occasions and for responding to our requests at such short notice. We are pleased to say that everyone who wanted a catalogue was happily supplied with a catalogue.

Thanks must also go to all our sponsors for their help in making the 2007 National Exhibition such a great success.

Click the report on the right for a short photographic record of the event:

Burr (Burl) Veneer Descriptions & Library

The latest page to our veneers library and gallery describes and displays those most favoured of marquetarian's veneers; the burrs!

Everyone seems to like burrs and we thought it was about time for us to bring you a full page devoted entirely to those outgrowths and warts that the trees themselves (if they have any awareness) would probably think of as ugly, but we contrarily, as the users of those "tree warts" find immensely picturesque and beautiful!

Anyway, after our little flight of fancy, let's take a look at those burrs / burls by clicking the link on the right:

The July 1981 Redbridge Group's Exhibition

One of our Redbridge Marquetry Group's members has recently uncovered a cache of high quality black and white photos which were taken at the very successful Fulwell Cross exhibition the group held in July 1981.
This exhibition was the very first to be held by the group since its formation in 1979 - and we are very pleased to say that many of those original members from that 1979 formation are still turning up regularly for our weekly group meetings.
The infamous Charlie Good (a marquetarian held in the very highest esteem) attended the exhibition and displayed a small selection of his magnificent marquetry pictures.
We have started off this display with ten selected pictures for you to enjoy, we will add more pictures with future updates. We hope you will enjoy this first small selection as much as we do.
Click the link on the right to "visit the 1981 Exhibition":  

Veneer Descriptions & Library

And yet another new page of veneer descriptions and "scanned" examples of those very veneers have been added to our web site's veneer library with this update.
There are several examples of Burr (or Burl) veneers in this selection.
Burr veneers are rightly prized for their distinctly attractive appearance.
These veneers have a very unique place in marquetry.
Click the link on the right to visit the veneer's pages:

Tunbridge Ware Exhibition

There is now a very interesting article available for you to read concerning the highly successful Tunbridge Ware exhibition recently held at historic Hever Castle.
Click the link on the right to read this article:

Hever Castle is located just off the B2026 at Hever, Edenbridge, Kent.
You can find more information by visiting their web site,
just click the link on the right to enter the web site:

&

"Hever Castle"

Using a Scraper Demonstration

We promised you that we will be bringing you a tutorial / demonstration on the uses of a scraper with this update.
Well, to prove that we are as good as our word - here it is!
You will find this is a very informative tutorial that really gets into the veritable depths of it's subject.
Scrapers are truly invaluable for removing larger amounts of waste material from your marquetry work than you could ever achieve with cork blocks and abrasive papers in just a fraction of the time.
Click the link on the right for this tutorial: 

Tunbridge Ware Tutorial

In July 2006 we re-published a 50 year old article taken from the Marquetarian magazine covering the subject of Tunbridge Ware.
Somewhat to our surprise the article proved to be very popular - so therefore in response to this unexpected interest we have coerced our Chief Instructor Alf Murtell into presenting a practical demonstration of the methods needed to make a piece of Tunbridge Ware.
So it is that, with the help of our Stan Wiskin and his trusty band saw, we now bring you Alf Murtell's Tunbridge Ware tutorial. We feel sure you will thoroughly enjoy it.
Just click the link on the right for the tutorial:

January
2008
until
December
2008

Our Winter to Spring Term 2008

On Wednesday 9th January 2008 the Redbridge Marquetry Group returned to their rooms for the winter to spring term.
We will not be taking another break until Easter, so if you are in our area on a Wednesday evening, please do drop in and say hello - we would love to meet you. 
 

 IMPORTANT INFO - OUR 2008 EASTER HOLIDAY

The Redbridge Group start their Easter holidays after their last meeting for the winter term on the 9th April 2008 and are then back in their rooms on the 23rd April 2008 until they take their summer break later in the year.
We will keep you posted of the dates when we do our April 2008 update.

2006 National Marquetry Exhibition

The 2006 National Marquetry Exhibition gallery has now been published and is currently available on the Marquetry Society web site.
Being the (ahem!) magnanimous people that we are, we have decided to provide you with a link directly into that gallery so that you don't have to go changing web sites to get there - by the way, don't forget to return to us when you've finished visiting the gallery.
Just click the link on the right for this item:

Please note that this link will
now display the current
National Exhibition
Gallery only.

1957 Tunbridge Ware Article

Recently there has been rather a lot of interest shown in Tunbridge Ware by marquetry minded people.
This is a form of "woodwork" that can be used to reproduce a repetitive pattern of a complex nature without going to the extremes of re-cutting the design time and time again.
Tunbridge Ware is an attractive form of wood decoration and is well worth studying.
Therefore, to help you gain an understanding of how this art is performed, we have dug into the archives and unearthed an early article from The Marquetarian published nearly 50 years ago - and revamped it for today's web site!
Thanks must obviously go to Mr A. Vigus for writing the original article -  and to The Marquetarian for making it available to us for publishing today.
Just click the link on the right for this item: 

Marquetry Society Web Site

As many of you know, we at the Redbridge Marquetry Group have taken responsibility for, and are now producing, the Marquetry Society web site.
Since 10th June 2006 that web site has been operating from its new server and is fully operational and, we are happy to say, it no longer suffers from those "bandwidth Limit exceeded" messages that previously plagued it for the last week of every month.
It is available from those two addresses displayed on the right, (you can use either one, they both display the same content):

Marquetry in the 1950's

A superb cache of marquetry photos from the 1950's has been unearthed by one of our group members.
There are quite a few National Exhibition pictures in the collection  - and we have taken the opportunity to republish a few here. The original photos are somewhat 'time worn', but we have used a little computer magic and cleaned them up for you.
Just click the link on the right for this item: 
While there, why not click the link at the bottom of that page to read a really good article on finishing marquetry pictures in the 50's - it's very educational, well worth reading!!   

Judging Marquetry in the 1950's

We thought that a little delve into intricacies of judging a "National" in the early days of the Society would prove interesting. The priorities have changed a fair amount over the years and make fascinating reading - so, just click this link to read a genuine report from the '50's
Just click the link on the right for this item: 

Flattening Buckled Veneers Tutorial

Alf Murtell, (our very own Mr Dynamite!)  has produced yet another tutorial for us. This tutorial is one that 'umpteen visitors have requested - it is the one that demonstrates how to flatten buckled and warped veneers. There are a few "ingredients" required for the process - they are all listed at the bottom of the tutorial - and, you will find that they are all easily available.
Just click the link on the right for this item: 

Staircase House

Roy Murton, (our venerable Chairman) has spent the last several months working on a project for the Royal National Institute for the Blind which was a veneer adorned scale model of Staircase House, Stockport.
This was an intriguing project and we are pleased to say that an article describing it's construction is available on this web site.
Just click the link on the right for this item: 

2006 Woodworker Show

In February 2006 the Redbridge Marquetry Group manned the Marquetry Society stand at the Woodworking Show, Alexandra Palace.
The show was a great success and signed up many new members to the Marquetry Society.
Our Dave Walker was one of the RMG members who demonstrated marquetry techniques at the show - and he has compiled a superb report on the show for our web site.
To read Dave's report (and to view the photos)
Just click the link on the right for this item: 

Veneer Reference Library

Another page of veneers and their descriptions have been added to our veneer reference library. This latest batch of descriptions now takes us up to page 13 (or 12a for the superstitious!) so, if you would like a quick peep at these new descriptions,
Just click the link on the right for this item: 

Other Works by our Members

Another new attraction we are adding to this web site (for a trial period) is a Gallery page displaying the alternate works of our Redbridge Group members.
These 'alternate works' comprise of things such as paintings and drawings which could be used as the basis (or themes) for a marquetry picture.
We think they make an attractive addition to our web site. If you would like to have a shortcut to the Gallery page displaying the 'alternate works'
Just click the link on the right for this item: 

Bleaching Veneers Tutorial

Our Alf Murtell did our Redbridge Group a superb demonstration of bleaching techniques last week and we have recorded the demonstration as a tutorial.
We have transcribed the full dialogue for you and included it as the text for that same tutorial - we hope you like this approach because we think it adds a more "being there" feel to the demonstration, you could almost feel that you are there at the demonstration with us!.
Just click the link on the right for this item: 

Links Page Information

Some new additions have been added to our links and artistic links pages. We have included a good supplier of exotic veneers and packs of off cuts. Do take a look at their web site to see what we mean. There is also a new addition to our artistic links page that we think you will enjoy. Just click the "Useful Links" button at the bottom of this page to visit the sites.

Photos Enquiry

Can You Help Us? We are currently attempting to locate photos of any of the marquetry pictures that were entered in the very first National Exhibition of 1953. If you think that you may have a photo of any of the exhibits would you mind helping us out with this quest and contacting our editorial team with any details you may have of those very first exhibits.

You can e-mail us from this following link:
Just click the link on the right for this item: 

Beginning of the Marquetry Society 

A Superb collection of hand written pages describing the beginnings of the Marquetry Society have been discovered by one of our Redbridge Marquetry Group members.
These papers detail how in 1952 an enquiring letter to a hobby magazine started the whole thing off.
The papers describe the very first National Exhibition and provide a list of all the winning pictures. There is a link to this page available the "Our History" page.
Or, if you prefer a short cut,
Just click the link on the right for this item: 
(By the way, we have found some photos of that first National Exhibition winner's work and we have added them as a link on the above page. Do have a look, we think you'll enjoy them.)

Early News & Events Articles

You will find that we have "cleaned up" this News & Events page so that the items contained on this page are reasonably current and not "old news". The earlier items, together with their links, are still available on a companion page to this one.
To access that page just click the link on the right:

Site Map Information

Don't forget to make use of our "site map" to take you to any page, sub page, article or illustration on our site by just clicking on its name.
Just click the link on the right for this item:     

Visiting us at Redbridge

Why not come along and visit us at our rooms in the leafy Borough of Redbridge.
You will receive a very warm welcome from all the members and you will be able to see the art and craft of marquetry being performed by award winning marquetarians.
You can find a map of our location on our "Contact Us" page.
Do come along and enjoy some of that legendary Redbridge hospitality, you will be most welcome. 

Sending Enquiries

We are pleased to say that our editorial team is keeping very busy with replying to, and answering, your e-mail questions and enquiries. Thanks for sending them in, we appreciate your interest in our web site. We are always available to answer your marquetry questions. All you need to do is just click on the "Contact Us" button at the bottom of this page and use the pre-addressed link to send us an e-mail, it's that easy! 

E-Mailing Us

If you are unable to get to one of our meetings but would like to "have a chat" with us, please feel free to e-mail our editorial team (or you can use our feedback form if you prefer) and our team will send you a friendly (and hopefully useful!) reply if you would like one. In the meantime, keep visiting this web site for all the latest news from the Redbridge Marquetry Group. 

Click the link on the right to visit the stated page >>

Click the link on the right to visit the stated page >>

Click the link on the right to visit the stated page >>

Click the link on the right to visit the stated page >>

IMPORTANT INFORMATION