Starting the Blanket Chest Marquetry

After finishing the drawings I had to chose the veneer I was going to use and map out a strategy on the drawings of the order in which I was going to cut the pieces. I have had good results in the past using poplar for leaves so that's what I'm using this time. I also have some dyed orange veneer and a few shades of various colors of red to use for the flowers, other than cherry I'm not sure what the species are.

For the other parts of the marquetry I'll chose the colors when I get there. The back ground is figured eucalyptus.  With all those leaves in the picture you have to work from the background to the foreground or you can get in trouble.After the pieces are cut I sand shade them to give the image a little more depth. You can see from the pictures what a real difference it makes.

         

   On this project I'm using the double bevel method of cutting that I learned from Marc Adams at Marc Adams School of Woodworking, you set you table at a slight angle (11deg.) and after laying two pieces together you make a cut and the bevel creates a wedge shaped on each of the pieces then they fit perfectly into one another .
 The first flower I did in the form of packets that I cut into the background but as I started the next one I realized it just wasn't going to be able to be done that way so the second and third flowers would  have to be cut in as you go right into the background veneer. I thought it would save time making the packets and cutting them into the background later.The flowers were no problem doing in the packet form and setting into the background  but what I should have realized  was the trouble I was going to have with the tiny pieces in between the leaves that would need to be cut out and how they would crumble under the slightest of stress and of course be remade. This was a true test of my patience, trying to make tiny pieces without them crumbling wasn't easy and a couple of them took several times and were a bit time consuming.  Now this is not the first time I've done this and you would think I would have learned by now but I didn't.

These tiger lilies have little stamen that protrude out of the middle of the flowers and I have yet to add them but from the pictures above you get a good idea of what they will look like placed in the eucalyptus background. I am by no means an expert at this but with every project I get a little better and for now I'm happy with the results I'm getting.