With this tool cabinet, I wanted to explore and put into practice several avenues I was researching.
One of them: to tackle the marquetry technique of a famous 18th-century cabinetmaker, David Roentgen. This "mosaic marquetry" technique involves cutting a single sheet of veneer using a conical saw. Each piece is then colored by dipping it in a chosen dye.
However, there were two difficulties: the conical sawing, which was delicate on a 0.6 mm veneer, and the coloring of the wood.
When I'm doing marquetry, I like to reposition each piece on a copy of the design. This allows me to visualize the result once the cutting is finished.
The hardest part was the dyeing. I wanted to reproduce the 18th-century process. I consulted several books from the period, including Roubo, and then made several trials until I arrived at the result you see. Some shades are simple, like the dark brown, made with walnut stain. Others are more complex and original, like a variation of red made with urine and horse manure. And the smell!
Once dry, I glue the veneer onto paper with hot glue, then I cut out the outline of the marquetry.
Not everything went perfectly: the blue dye migrated to the background. Perhaps due to the veneer drying out, or the hot gluing process. The experiment needs to be repeated to understand why.
And here's the result after sanding:
