How to Make these Incredible Wood Veneers - Not too Difficult but Patience Needed

in the past I've made a few videos about making patterns in Wood they've mainly been Japanese inspired with Kumiko and Yosegi where I take plane shavings from a block that I formed into a pattern on one of those videos somebody commented about trying Persian marquetry and it's stuck in my mind ever since I've tried researching it but found very little info but I believe it's called Khatam Kari the patterns are all made up from Tiny triangles which need to be fairly accurate from those and using your imagination you can make a virtually limitless amount of patterns that's done by using contrasting materials including wood metal and Bone here's a few test pieces I made to work out the process anyway I'll attempt to make a few patterns which I'm working out here and how many pieces I'm going to need I've had a good look through all the wood and I've decided to use black wattle and pine which should give a pretty good contrast and I'll start to prepare that ready to make some triangle sticks I'll square up some blanks and then take slices which I'll then turn into the sticks ready to make the patterns by the way the triangles Measure 3mm or 1/8" across the flats which is on the larger side of what would have traditionally been used I want the best contrast I can get at least on one of the patterns and as you can see the all wood test piece on the right gets a bit muddy compared to the one on the left when it's wetted also that was made from the lightest would I have which I don't have enough of to use traditionally they would have used bone for more contrast and as an alternative I'm going to use white plastic the bone would have been camel and I believe that it had to soak for a few months to bleach it  before use it's a touch too thick so as well as cutting the angle into two pieces I'm also reducing the thickness at the same time so here's all the materials ready to turn into sticks there's two types of wood and there's also plastic aluminum  and Brass the first thing I need to do is make a very simple jig to cut the sticks into the triangles it's been a couple of years since I used this little bandsaw and I thought it'd be ideal for this project I could use the jig like this but a shelf will make things easier and more accurate I'm excited to tell you about Bondi Bond a CA glue that I've been testing and working on that will be available soon I use CA glue in just about every project and this is an excellent product if you're interested and you want to get hold of some I'll put a link in the description to get on a wait list if you're on that list you'll get a saving with pre-launch prices anyway let's cut some sticks the first stick has a 90° angle on it so that one gets discarded I flip the board and make the next cut which leaves an equilateral triangle stick with 60° on each corner they're still not quite usable straight off the band saw they still need some refining I'll cut a handful of them and then I'll show how to do that next that's enough to get started with and I'll cut the rest of them afterwards all I need is a block of wood with a groove down the middle for the strips to sit in while I finish sizing them and I could do that with a V groove router bit but all the ones I have are 90° and I need 60° so instead I've prepped these two bits of wood and I'm going to put a bevel on each of these two corners and then glue them together the groove needs to be the correct depth for the final size strip but it's easy enough to adjust that by planing the top of the block it doesn't actually matter though quite what size it is as the strips will all be the same size and that's what really matters to finish sizing them I'll use a file and I only need to do the two flats left from the bandsaw the one smooth flat can be left alone any file will do but this wide one works really well I'm not quite sure where it came from but I think somebody gave it to me to make a knife out of as the end is broken off anyway I didn't mention that you should make the block from hardwood I think this is spotted gun but either way it is super dense and that will prevent the block from wearing out too quickly and also to help with that I'm filing them down to a hair above the surface of the block it doesn't take too long to do and they come out pretty consistent there's a few furry bits on the corner so they need sanding off they're easy enough to do but as with any of these sorts of projects you do need patience as this is only a minute amount compared to what I still have left to prepare that's the first bunch ready to use now to cut the rest of them that's all the wood and the plastic ones cut and I've decided to refine these by using the drum sander and see how that goes it's not actually a great deal faster but it is easier so I'll keep going with them after a short while I got a system going which definitely helped I put the stick into the block with the smooth face that doesn't need sanding in the same position every time and then after putting it through I don't need to find which face still needs sanding I just rotate it away from me and sand the next face while the second flat is being sanded I get the next stick ready with the smooth face already in position to go into the block I thought about making a multi-groove block and doing several at once but I think that would have been too awkward to position and hold the sticks while they enter the roller I think I would have ended up getting in a mess where this system which maybe one at a time was pretty slick and I got a good rhythm going I thought it was going to take more than a day maybe a day and a half to file all the sticks using the drum sander and this method took me about 4 hours which I didn't think was too bad it took a good couple of hours or so to sand all the corners here's one of the patterns I'll be making but next I need to prepare the metal sticks I'll start with the aluminium and I'll cut one on the wood cutting Band Saw just to show that that works it's fine but I'll cut the rest of them on my metal cutting Band Saw as it does a slightly better job it's exactly the same procedure as the wooden ones just much slower fortunately I don't need anywhere near as many as these are just highlights in the pattern the aluminium ones went well but the brass struggled and was taking far too long so I decided to try another method I welded up a simple block with a V groove in from angle iron it's just the same as the wood one and I'll hammer in brass rod to form the triangular sticks the first thing I need to do is anneal them to make them softer so they can form to the shape of the v in the block it's working pretty well they'll need a second round of annealing and forming and they'll also need straightening out that's pretty good I'll straighten them then do final refining just like I did with the wood and plastic ones that's all of them done which was a lot of work and somehow they actually look pretty nice as they are I'll use PVA to glue them and I don't have a definite plan but I'll start by putting the glue in a bag and see how that  goes I'll put together this pattern first six pine in the center, six white ones to make a star or a flower and the rest of them black wattle I start with the center pine sticks and then build up around it I'm using plenty of glue, I don't want any dry spots it's messy but I don't mind that and peeling dry glue off your hands is actually quite satisfying I found a katam Kari video where they tied the bundles with cotton at least I think that's what it was so I'll try that I found the cotton was breaking so I went round it again with some wax thread I didn't film the next one but I got in a mess when putting on the outer layers the pattern started misaligning so I took the outside ones off and tied just the center section and cleaned the glue off the remaining sticks to reuse I've decided for the rest of the patterns I'll glue them up in stages I tried the cotton again and it worked better as there isn't as many sticks to pull together I didn't need to wrap the cotton as tight and it didn't break the cotton sands off but I wouldn't say it was quick and there has to be a better method these will get glued together to make a larger block later on next I'll glue the outside pieces just like on the first one that's much better, working his stages is definitely the way to go also you may notice the dental floss which one of my supporters on patreon reminded me of I have used it before for something similar and I have a feeling I've used it in a video but I forgot all about  it anyway it's perfect it's strong and doesn't break it's also easy to get back off when the glue set as you'll see later in the video after each stick I go to my outside sink and clean my hands ready to do the next one and like I say it really is messy next I'll have a go the pattern with the aluminium and the brass I've started counting the sticks that I need for each glue up just to make sure that I don't put an extra one in somehow and ruin the pattern I'll make a note of what I've done so far the first pattern's done these ones are the center of this pattern I still need to do the outside and next I'll do these ones I did one off camera and glued it up in one go it didn't work well, when I tied it the corner triangles pulled in and shifted the other sticks around instead I've made smaller blocks which tied together with no issues and I'll glue those together into a bigger block when they've set they were actually pretty quick to do one thing I'm doing different is squeezing some of the glue off the sticks by pinching it with the side of the bag there's still heaps of glue on there but not as much which makes things a touch cleaner there's still another pattern to go but first I'll remove the dental floss from all the ones that I've done so far I clean up the outside with some filing and sanding and then glue them together into the final shapes now back to the aluminium and brass one to put the outside pieces on and by the way there's 42 pieces to make up the outside just to give you an idea these are all done with just the last pattern to go I've already glued up the larger center triangle and I did that by making it in stages I need three more larger triangles for the three corners which I've also done off camera and now I'm gluing on the rest of the outside pieces this is how the hexagonal pieces were going to go together but I've decided to do something different with the aluminium  and brass one I'll lay them like this leaving a triangle which I need to make I've worked out that I need 12 triangles to every six hexagons and these are the only sticks I have left so I need to cut some more one thing I found out here was these smaller glue-ups really didn't need much pressure when tying them and these worked out to be the most accurate and consistent ones out of all of them which I found out later on that really is all of them done now I need to clean them up ready to glue together I'll trim up an end of all the sticks just to make sure that I have a full pattern on the one end and then I'll cut them down to shorter lengths to glue them together I've made up these supports from scraps which hopefully will help put even clamping pressure onto the  blocks I'm using titebond 3 as this will be very good for filling out any voids that may be lurking between the blocks before I can take slices off the block I need to clean up one face and any excess glue on the outside of each block they came up pretty good but they're not perfect this one here it's a bit wavy I think I could do a better job of  that and there's some voids in the side but I'm going to tile it and just see how the tiles look and hopefully it'll still be effective this one here that one came out pretty good there's not a lot wrong with that one and this one here needs the glue cleaning up on the outside to slice off and make tiles I'll use the band saw this is where things differ from yosegi that I showed at the start of the video those blocks were all face grain where these are end grain even if it were possible to get a shaving off one of these blocks it would just fall apart so I need to take off 1 mm slices here's the first view to take a look at how effective the pattern will be when it's tiled together I think this one is going to be my favorite one anyway I'll keep cutting them that's all those ones done it wasn't all perfect and there were a few failed ones the blade kept moving around and it even came out of the guides a couple of times I played around with the guides and the top wheel and got it a bit better but it still wasn't 100% happy these border ones lost a few pieces on the first cut so to fix that I'll glue on some veneers either side which I thought about doing anyway it made me jump as well I didn't have a spare fine tooth blade so I went to plan B which was my other band saw I didn't use it on this project as it needs new guides the ones that are on are the original ones from when I made the band saw and that was about 8 years ago I don't know what I was thinking the saw was cutting way better I should have just used this from the start it cut cleaner faster and more consistent though it definitely does need new guides I've cut a good amount there's still some left on the blocks for a few more but that will do for now I'll quickly use a few of them on a box just to see how they look I have a few boxes already made so I'll use this one that's already mitred and glued together it's my daughter Jess's birthday and this will make a great little present in fact if you're watching this on the day it was released it's her birthday today these ones were always meant just for a border but I thought they may look pretty good on the sides stacked like this I reckon the pattern will be more effective on a larger project and I plan on making that in my next video take a guess of what you think that may be or let me know what you'd use it on I'm always happy to get ideas while those are setting I'll sand the edges of the top veneers so they're ready they're slightly furry along the edges and only need a very light sand that's ready to glue on I just need to trim up the sides I need to split the top from the box and I'll use this method that I've shown before it works great and because the saw is super thin hardly any of the pattern is lost in fact I'm cutting right between two of the very thin border strips next I'll line the inside of the box and hide the plywood it doesn't look quite right to me I reckon the top needs a border so with a sacrificial fence I have the table saw blade sticking up ever so slightly, the thickness of a veneer I didn't have a heap time to finish it for  Jess's birthday but I did sand it to 600 grit and then applied Renaissance wax to finish it I'll give Jess the box like this but I will take it back off her and build up the finish a bit more I'm sure she'll be happy with it actually I can tell you that she loved it because it's a birthday today as I'm talking to you the triangles on the side are a bit wonky but I actually quite like it you almost get the impression that each piece has been put in there individually anyway it was a super fun project I seem to say that a lot but making wooden patterns is always fun hopefully you enjoyed the video thanks for watching and I'll see you on the next one

Channel: Pask Makes

Views: 264,691

Keywords: paskmakes, pask, pask makes

Id: 65EPla3PfZE

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2024