While designers are familiar with wood as a versatile construction and decorative element little attempt has been made to exploit the decorative options available through the use of marquetry. We want you to know how easily you can incorporate a Glyph marquetry component. Wood veneers typically are 0.6mm thick, sliced from the felled log in various ways to achieve the desired display of the grain. By laminating them to a cheaper, more abundant substrate they very efficiently conserve the limited stocks of the species with valuable visual characteristics. To create broad sheets these slices are 'stitched' together to create a panel-sized 'lay-on'. It is these raw veneers that the marqueteur carefully cuts and assembles, much like a jigsaw puzzle. When glued together these pieces form a continuous sheet that can be glued to a substrate just as the parent veneers. To varying degrees they can be made to conform to surfaces curved along one axis, and in thin ply assembly can be laid as a flexible membrane. Once pressed the veneer behaves much like any other wood and cabinetmakers, carpenters and polishers need no special tools or skills. Some simple precautions will ensure marquetry is preserved in optimum condition during manufacturing. Store flat and cool pending machining.  Hand sanding is not recommended as sandings are carried into adjacent veneers in the piece and contaminate the unsealed grain. A sharp hand scraper can be used with care or a reciprocating sander incorporating a vigorous extraction system. In response to environmental changes, natural differential expansion of the many little component pieces in the marquetry will cause distortions in the work , and possible gaps, until the work is properly sealed. Glyph can supply marquetry at various stages of manufacture: as simple raw veneer lay-on or insert; as pressed panel unsanded or trimmed; as pressed finished component: and in some instances as finished product. Discuss your needs for any particular project or tendering manufacturer. While we are fastidious at the smallest scale of marquetry, we are equally able to prepare full-sized panels and have enabled designers to incorporate their most impressive graphics on whole walls in a hotel, on board room tables, in luxury yacht fitouts and shopping centre directories bollards.

Honour board intended to hang on the wall most of the time, but quickly lifted off for transportation around Australia in a purpose-build crate for use at conferences and presentation ceremonies (when carrier box becomes the easel for its temporary display). Designed and built in our studio to the clients' general brief. The lower inserts show the detail of two elements in the board. The traditional images follow artwork from a commissioned painting Spirit Figures © Dale R Huddleston 1999

Email mark@markshearer.org         Telephone + 61 8 8367 7788          Fax + 61 8 8367 8887