For the past few months, all of my focus has been on the marquetry panels for the Kickstarter (KS) backers. These are about one-fifth a section of the entire top. When I look beyond this boundary, I get nervous! The KS panel is an edited version of the top which has A LOT OF DETAIL!

YIKES!

Step-by-step, I will be able to address this…

The problem I face next deals with the size of the complete top. If you study pictures of the original, you’ll see that the long grain direction of the background veneer runs parallel to the long direction of the top, and there isn’t an obvious opportunity to break the marquetry into discrete sections. The issue is, I don’t have a saw with a throat depth (the distance from the blade to the nearest obstruction, whatever it is) sufficient to cut the entire top as one piece; not my fretsaw, and certainly not the mini-chevalet. I don’t think that even a typical full-sized chevalet could even handle the task. It would have to have been purpose built. (Side note: to be certain, I checked with the school, and as I suspected, the throat depth of their chevalets are also too small.)

Roubo says that marquetry of this kind was created by laying down the background veneer first, then cutting the marquetry in using a shoulder knife. While I could cut the design into the background this way, I’m working with 1/32 inch thick veneer pieces. It’d be tough, slow going. Plus, I’m not skilled with the shoulder knife!

Another solution is to build a frame jig saw (see picture below), the foot-powered equivalent of a large scroll saw. Since chevalets in their present form weren’t around in the mid-1700s, this type of saw may have been used to cut marquetry for some Oeben furniture, as it existed at least a century prior.

While I could certainly build one to solve my issue, it would again, delay the project. Neither of these solutions strikes me as obvious though…