Holy Crap, Tiny Inlay

[hamptonpaulk]

I Purchased this front fold desk last weekend to refinish for the house.

I am really interested in how such a small inlay is achieved.

As a reference in the photos below, the larger of the two inlays is 1/16".

Thanks in advance for any insights. Lots of work ahead here.

[Dave F]

Is it actually inlay or veneer intarsia?

[hamptonpaulk]

@Dave - Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. It does look like it is intarsia.

[Dave F]

The amount of detail in quality intarsia in incredible..

[Onboard]

I am really interested in how such a small inlay is achieved.

Hampton, the inlay on the front of your desk looks like stringing or string inlay. Even though inlay can be done with a variety of materials, I’m only referring to wood in my comments. Below, I’m sharing only what I’ve been able to dig up on the web.

Some stringing I’ve seen is done by laminating sheets of veneer on the surface of the wood, but leaving a small gap between the veneer sheets, then putting the wood stringing between the gaps. I couldn’t say how they did the stringing on your desk. They may have cut the “grooves” after laminating the veneer. If the strings or thin strips of veneer were laid down between the other veneer sheets (on the substrate), and were not “imbedded” below the surface of the wood the veneer sits on, then I guess you could loosely call the whole thing marquetry, although marquetry is typically pieces of thin wood (or veneer) put together to form a picture of graphic. I’ve also heard of “onlay” strips so it may be that as well.

You can purchase premade wood strings. This site sells stringing in widths from 1/32 inch to 1/8 inch. The also sell a 1/16 inch router bit to create a “groove” to mount the 1/16 inch stringing in. Here is a video from WoodTreks demonstrating how to do an inlay string and how to make the wood strings. There are other methods I’ve seen but this is one way.

A Luthier does something similar. They have various types of cutting tools to cut a small grove to inlay the wood string. Luthiers call this “purfling”. The purfling is usually done along a curved edged and not a straight edge. You can see an example of purfling at this website.

I wouldn’t call your string inlay intarsia, but if you’re interested in a few pictures and a definition of intarsia then go to this website. Just read the third paragraph down (next to the horse head) for a good explanation of intarsia.

If you want a simple explanation of the differences between marquetry, intarsia and inlay then read the first three (but short) paragraphs of this article.

As far as restoring this piece, you’ll have to see if other WTO members contribute anything on restoration. I imagine you could modify the piece with more decorative pieces of inlay such as this place sells. Based on the separation I see in your third photo (the bow or warp) it looks like you have a veneered front. In this case you would have to remove some veneer to widen the gap for some of the wider inlay strips. This suppliers inlay strips have a thickness of 1/28 inch so it may sit below the surface of the veneer. You could measure the thickness of the bowed piece. I see the inlay strips Rockler sells is about 1/20 of an inch thick. I didn’t look beyond that.

[nateswoodworks]

Onboard sent you in the right direction and you are right about how small the detail work can be, there sure have been tons of masters that have paved the way for us. Have fun with your project, restoring is not for me but I sure am thankful for those that will help keep the antiques around for another 100yrs.

Nate

[RenaissanceWW]

I'm actually editing a podcast right now on doing this inlay using Lie Nielsen's inlay tools. It is really a pretty simple process down either by hand or with a small router bit. Many folks I know use a dremel tool for this work.

[hamptonpaulk]

@onboard: thank you for the info, I am removing the veneer from the front of the desk now, and will be able to see the depth of the inlay / marquetry and get a bit more information on how it was originally done. Very impressed with a lot of the marquetry work out there and the history.

@renaissanceww: looking forward to the podcast. Following you on the twitter now so as not to miss the post.