The Design of a Marquetry Press
by David Walker
One of the most useful and important pieces
of equipment that a Marquetarian can possess is a press. It causes a lot
of heartache having spent a long time on your masterpiece and failing to
lay the picture successfully onto the baseboard.
I have used a variety
of methods from G-clamps to placing weights like the sewing machine on top
of the protected picture, to jacking the car up on a dry day and lowering
it onto the protected picture.
All of these had a
moderate success but you cannot beat a properly made press unless you can
afford a vacuum press.
The press described
below can be made cheaply and is certainly within the skills of most
Marquetarians.
|
Four cross members and one of
the press plates.
The identical items are used for the top & bottom
sections of the press |
|
|
8 x long coach bolts are fitted
to the bottom
plate assembly as seen here |
|
|
The top press plate and two
packs of paper wadding
are added to the component list for the press
|
|
|
The packs of wadding are now in
place with two sheets of
protective plastic sheet placed in between to
prevent glue seepage sticking the marquetry
picture to the paper wadding packs |
|
|
The top cross members have now
been added prior to the wing nuts being fitted on the coach bolts.
The marquetry picture will have been placed between the two
protective plastic sheets in the wadding package |
|
|
The assembled press with the
marquetry picture placed in the middle of the
plastic sheet and wadding package.
The wing nuts have been fitted and the whole assembly has been
tightened
sufficiently to apply a good and even pressure across the
picture's entire surface.
Note that the cross members are tapered from the centre out to
both edges to ensure that the pressure gets applied to the middle
section of the picture first. This distributes and exudes excess
glue to prevent glue pockets forming. |
|
|
