Chris Tribe Furniture Courses

This is a short piece for those who recently attended my marquetry taster session explaining how to clean up and finish the motif we made during the four hour session.
The first thing is to remove the veneer tape from the motif. To do this lightly moisten it with a damp cloth. Do not over do it else you may have some veneer pieces lifting. Leave for a few minutes then peel away the moist tape. You may have to repeat this as you work through the layers.

You may find that the veneer has lifted in places, especially where pieces have overlapped and not been pressed fully onto the substrate. You may be able to iron these down by pressing with the point of a hot iron (notice in the picture the iron is slightly angled so just the point is touching the veneer), the glue we used if thermo setting for a while after use  so if you do this soon the iron will work. If not carefully lift the loose piece and ease a little super glue (the furniture makers friend) underneath and press down with a knife or something (not your finger!)

Now sand both sides. This is best done with a sanding block. Start with about 120 grit (medium) then 180 grit (fine). You can also tidy up the edges with the sanding block  but be careful to sand in a direction so you don't push the veneer off the edge ie work from the centre out. If you have a sharp block plane you could do this part with that.

You are now ready to put the finish on. The simplest finish would probably be danish oil or boiled linseeed oil. Apply the oil fairly liberally with a rag and leave it for about 10 minutes then rub off any surplus with a dry rag, try to remove all surplus, almost polishing the surface. Allow to dry for about 12 hours then rub over with very fine sand paper, 400 grit, and apply another coat of oil. Repeat about four times with danish oil, more if using linseed oil.

Another good finish would be French polish, but I don't want to go there at the moment!

I don't seem to have images of applying oil at the time of writing this, I'll try to add some later.

Good luck!