WIA'12-Pasadena: Personal Tour with Paul Schürch

The week spent in Pasadena for WIA'12 included several side trips besides WIA itself.  When I think of the highlights of the week, WIA is actually pretty low on the list!  The number one highlight of the week was going to Paul Schürch's shop for a tour of his projects and shop in beautiful Santa Barbara.  As I eluded to before, I brought along two friends thinking we'd be there for maybe a couple hours.  Eight hours later, Paul and my friend Roger were both getting close to the doghouse with their wives otherwise it might have lasted even longer!

For me it was special to hang out with two creative minds I greatly admire; Paul being one, Roger being the other.  I got to know Paul earlier this year when I took a fantastic 5-day class in marquetry from him (read this post on the Paul Schürch class for more details!)

We started out just in the shop with general introductions and looking around.  Roger spotted some interesting work up on a back cabinet and the banter started.  "What was this for?" "Really? For what project?" "How do you know her?!" "When was that?"  After several minutes of this going back and forth, they realized they had bid against each other on a project.  Roger was a primary bidder while Paul was subbed by a bidding designer.

But that's when it got even more interesting as they exchanged details, difficulties, and solutions for their respective submissions.  Hopefully this introduction will get them collaborating in some way in the future (and I want to be the fly on the wall for those design sessions!)

For part of the afternoon, Paul took us up into a storage area above the shop where many of the projects you see on his site's gallery page are stored.  We got a personal tour of each item and all our questions answered.  I liked these projects before, but like them even more now that I got to see them up-close, see how smooth they operate, and the caliber of marquetry (which can be assumed with Paul).


We also got to see some of his projects in process.  No video of those, but they'll be impressive once you see them in his photo gallery.  I'm looking forward to seeing the ones using stone.  I'm hoping he'll someday do classes in pietra dura, or stone inlay.  There are lessons learned on dealing with stone in the dialog of the video; getting those in a class would be fantastic.

The video below was taken of that tour.  I'll apologize up front that we were very close quarters literally swapping places with each other to move around.  That said, there's camera motion I don't like.  I'm super sensitive to that and it doesn't bug me so hopefully it's okay with you.  Just focus on something far away whenever you hear me 'ooh' or 'ahh'.



Here's a link to the video for my email subscribers.

Fixing Veneer Bubbles and Related Topics

Let me be the first to admit that doing 12 veneered panels of varying sizes for the Angle Madness project in my shop is kinda no fun.  Takes all the available space between bags, work tables, "veneer flattening areas", and places to aerate the finished panels until they finish curing.  Plus at night when I'd think, "oh, time to go make another panel", I had flashbacks of the movie "Groundhog Day" only without the fun of ice carving.

All the burl panels came out great; only one has a bubble on it so we'll go repair it and talk about a couple other related topics including an experiment I did with some of the remaining scrap veneer to see how fine a gap you can get away with during a glue-up.

I've scraped and sanded all but this last panel now so we can move on to looking at the drawer webbing and back column.



Hope the weather in your area is starting to feel more like shop weather!


As an aside, I've been playing with different aspects of the video process to see how to fix some things I don't like about the current process.  One night while in the shop taking some test video, I saw a baby Gecko on one of the panels of the garage door:

It was fun to watch her scurry around looking for the smallest bugs that were attracted by the lights in the shop.  I say 'her' cuz I'm not seeing anything to say 'him', but I don't know Gecko parts well!

The interesting thing is that a friend of mine posted a similar shot to Facebook taken from their house window at very nearly the same time.  Two people replied with photos taken that same night.  An interesting coincidence!

Felt like scooping her up and putting her in the backyard; the ants this year are amazing... she'll be the size of a cow in no time!

Angle Madness! - Veneering the 4-Way Bookmatch

In this episode, I work on the Maple burl panels that will adorn the tops of the drawer tiers.  Each is will be book-and-end matched more often called "4-way bookmatched".  However, as we discussed in the last episode, I'm placing the burl cloud to the outside edges of the panels, which adds an extra step in the second set of bookmatches of the "4-way".  You can see the burl cloud on these two panels.

We'll talk about testing for bubbles; I have one I found tonight on a burl panel; I'll roll a short video this weekend showing the repair.

The end of the video has a high-speed start-to-finish glue-up of the panel to act as a bit of a check-list for doing a panel glue-up in a vacuum press.  Easy to do, but I was surprised when I started annotating it just how many steps there are.

I was recruited to dog-sit for 3 weeks while my mom goes up to Canada to enjoy cool weather.  I thought maybe these two could be efficient "Pavlovian Veneer Tape Hydration Units"... I even had a dinner bell!  But they look a little useless in the shop. -sigh- just use the regular dispenser I guess...


...and because I know someone will ask :)  the tape on the pinky isn't because of a shop accident!  Went to stop a high clearing pass and it was a harder faster shot than I expected.  Right on the tip of the nail!  By the end of the game, the glove was a little messy.  I didn't work on the panels at all that week because odds are I would have 'stained' them just like all my keyboards now :-/  But... we won!  :)

By the way, High-Friction Guard Wrap from Lee Valley is absolutely fantastic for wrapping a dinged-up finger like this.  Sticks to itself, can be repeatedly removed and applied, breaths nicely, and doesn't slip.  Even if you don't plan on inadvertently stopping a puck with your finger nail, I'd highly recommend getting a roll both for its shop function of giving you better grip, but also as a top-shelf bandage wrap.

Angle Madness! - Veneering the Panels

This was a time-consuming episode to get together!  A lot going on!

In this episode, we'll veneer the panels for the drawer tiers.  I want to do the panels now so I can determine the size of the drawer webbing that will be between the panels in each tier.  And also, it is time consuming to go through 12 panels (cuz I'm making 2 units) so while I do some of the panels, I can be making progress on laying out the webbing.

This episode is longer than most because I try to go through everything.  If you've done some veneering, some parts will make excellent bathroom breaks.  But if you haven't, you'll get to see it all including some design decisions at the end for how to do the book-and-end match (4-way bookmatch) of the Maple burl.



A reference Paul Schürch often in the video as most everything I know of veneering and marquetry came from his DVDs and workshop.  Sure, there were other books, but they only confirmed what I learned.  Here, I reviewed the workshop I took with Paul Schürch; give that entry a look for details on his DVDs, which are fantastic.

Next up, preparing the drawer tiers for the panels, figuring out the drawer webbing, and... oh, yeah, there's a column in the back and some Nickel-plated rods!  hmm...  :)

Thanks for watching and thanks for the patience on these longer sections!

Angle Madness! - First one in the bag!

The next episode is mostly edited with just a bit more to record for it.  Should be out by early next week.

Meanwhile, a bit of a photo update and a handy shop project you might find useful.

I setup the vacuum bag and platen to verify everything was going to work; don't want to diagnose a leak while plastic resin glue is merrily curing!  (Big roll of packing tape nearby is your friend if you do!)  I tossed in some shop towels and the atmosphere promptly smashed them.  Left the VacuPress vacuum pump on for a little over an hour to ensure it wasn't going to cycle indicating a leak.

As you can see, this is a huge bag... it can press a full 49"x97" sheet with full platen.  A big chip-clip makes the back half of the bag inactive.

I put my VacuPress pump in a mobile stand that's pretty handy; I roll it underneath the MFT table next to two milk crates on furniture movers used for offcuts.  The VacuPress stand has 4 very smooth casters.

The top tray is removable making removing the pump trivial or to take all the VacuClamp parts to a workstation area.  Basically the four corner posts on the stand are inset into the lip under the tray.  No rocket science was used in this quick handy addition.

The back has a scrap of ply to prevent racking of the sides and also to protect the connectors on the back of the pump like the vacuum hose, air cleaner bottle, and power connector.

I use the VacuPump as a vacuum clamp sometimes so the pods and other stuff in the tray is handy to store with it especially since that stuff stores as well as a ferret.  The vacuum hose for the bag is too robust and long to store on the tray so I hang it on a hook with a bunch of other hoses like the HVLP turbine hoses.

So this is the first panel of 12 for this project in the bag!  This is an underside panel with curly Maple book-matched on the show side and Poplar on the inside.  I'll get a book-and-end match ("4-way") recorded tomorrow night to complete the episode then see how it all edits.

What I learned from Paul Schürch

Good grief, where to start?  That should give you a clue of the awesomeness of this class.

Paul Schürch came to Phoenix to teach a 5-day seminar on decorative veneering and marquetry.  For those of you who don't know who Paul is, he's a marquetarian who can do the classics, but excels at playing with the classics to make them come to life.  His break-through piece was the ribbon cabinet that caught the judges off guard by draping the ribbon throughout the piece instead of staying in the confines of the filetti.

The photo to the left is his spinning cabinet, one of three.  Click the photo to get to his gallery for it.  Nice stuff :)  He had this design rolling around his head for 7 years before committing it to a blueprint and ultimately build it.  Glad I'm not the only one with projects swimming around in my head forever.

The class started with getting familiar with the tools we'd use; the key being a veneer saw.  That's mine sitting on two of his booklets.  It's a common Two Cherries veneer saw.  While it seems perfectly obvious after the fact, the start of the class is correctly sharpening that saw.  World of difference.  The saw came in a kit of tools sold for the class along with all the boards and veneers we'd use.  Someone couldn't find their saw.  Paul said to look around for a saw with blue tape on it... because in every class, people put a bit of blue tape on their saw to mark it... guilty!

The first project was a marquetry panel based on one of several patterns he brought to class.  These are simple as far as marquetry projects go since the petals can have some cut drift or over-shading and still look pretty good.  This photo is of my panel; it has only had a minimal sanding and needs more before a shellac finish.  I'll be finishing it later along with my second panel described below.

While simple, the project takes you on a fast tour of everything needed for marquetry: 4-way bookmatch background, mitered filetti (the border), packet cutting all the part veneers at once, sand shading to express a light source, and all that is involved in assembly, gluing, repairing, sanding, and finishing.  By the way, 'fast' is appropriate: Paul keeps a very good pace; nobody gets left behind, but you won't find yourself yawning much either.  Very much appreciated.

Repairs are inevitable in any project, but with thin veneer or burls with voids, you have repairs to do as a natural course of work.  What made the seminar so much better was Paul's constant demonstration of how to fix problems in a number of ways.  He's a funny guy so the demo would usually go, "how are you going to repair that void?" "what void?" Whack! as the chisel comes flying down to put a monster hole in your project "that one?"  Best part? he'd immediately get down to showing you 2-3 ways to fix that hole then went ahead and fixed it in record time in front of you.  After the first panels came out of the vacuum press, we went back to find the repairs; though we knew where they were, they were next to impossible to find.  Any instructor who makes a point of showing repairs or how to fix a project when something goes wrong scores points with me; Paul went well beyond that.  I may be biased because I never received a surprise chisel whack, tear of my border, intentional removing of my glue as it went into the bag or any of the other surprises... or did I? hmm...

Though commercial raw veneers are just 1/42" thick, Paul's more than a little rough with it.  Previously, I always handled it gently, but once the stuff is properly flattened (day 1 topic), it's quite pliable and resilient to abuses.

Paul taught us packet cutting for creating the marquetry; in a nutshell, sandwich all the veneers properly aligned in a packet bound by paper chipboard and cut everything at once.  You aren't cutting individual pieces to be placed later, you are cutting both the void in the background and the part that fits it from stacked veneer.  Very fast.  Both of my projects were very comfortably cut with a single packet.  If you don't have many veneers in a single project, you can make duplicates by stacking multiple backgrounds and veneers for the parts and cut them at once.  Very useful for production work on, say, small gifts like I'd make or for semi-repeating marquetry borders Paul puts on tables.

Speaking of semi-repeating marquetry: Paul spent a great deal of time describing what the eye sees and what it ignores.  Keep these in mind and you can speed your work.  For example, a table with a complicated leaf-n-vine border was created as a number of different patterns, but some patterns were repeated on the table.  If you divide the table top into, say, 5 instead of 4, the eye has a difficult time locating or noticing the duplicate.  If you do it in 4ths, it seems the eye can catch the repetition.  Further, when cutting multiple of a pattern to repeat on the border of a table, Paul is able to sometimes place a leaf over the filetti (the border) or place it under by knifing in the piece of filetti that was cut from the packet.  Makes for an excellent way to reduce the cutting labor in a project without compromising the variety of the pattern.

Another interesting tidbit: at Marc Adams, Paul has a 36" diameter table with a radial match intentionally off center.  Even when telling students to find what is intentionally wrong with the table, most struggle awhile before noticing.  In this case, the radial match's center is off by 1.25".

Speaking of labor, I found it interesting that for Paul's average piece, the marquetry is only 5% the effort.


The second project was to be student designed.  Some class members grabbed sketchbooks for existing drawings or kid's coloring books.  All are good sources of simplified drawings that can be moved to marquetry easily.  I had a goofy idea in my head of trying to use the filetti as an element.  I drew up something... I can't draw!  At lunch, I drove up the street to work and asked the graphic designer to clean up the sketch.  Damn, took Evan all of 3 minutes to draw a perfect comic picture after I struggled for an hour and killed two erasers!  (thx, Evan!)

As you can see, I chose a bird for my subject :)  The numbers are part numbers for keeping them in order (I think I left most unnumbered as I later realized).  The copy framed in blue tape is the bottom of the packet; I used the copy of the drawing to place the veneer accurately.

This is the packet loaded with veneer, edges, background.  Pieces are blue taped in place.  By the way, you will go through an amazing amount of blue tape doing marquetry.  Same with gum tape (the white tape in the dual dispenser above the packet); gum tape is a white paper tape with hide glue adhesive that you wet with the dispenser (or lick it if you like that rustic BBQ taste :)

Topped the pile with another copy of the drawing attached to paper chipboard then hit the scroll saw.  The box to the right is just a partitioned parts box; I put numbered parts in each box.  Some numbered parts had tiny parts near them so I'd toss them in the same compartment (e.g., the shoe and ankle... kinda easy to tell apart).

I did this packet at night in my shop and cut it until 4:30am (didn't feel like it, but I'm a night owl!)  I wanted to do it on my own instead of in the class for a couple reasons: sink-or-swim and not so crowded. You think your projects can occupy all available horizontal space? Try marquetry! :)  ...and don't sneeze.

That saw is really nice.  An Excaliber 30" scroll saw.  Paul had mixed experience with Excaliber before, but the new design intrigued him so the store owner brought in the 30" for him to (literally) whack around and burn out blades to see how well put together they were.  I believe you'll be reading a full review later in FWW, but let's say I'm betting there's one in his shop now to replace his 21" scroll saw.  I grabbed the saw he abused; got it signed :)

So Paul's daily saw is (was?) a 21" scroll saw, but he has access to a 9' scroll saw.  Yes, 9 feet.  It is built as part of the shop that houses it with a spring on the ceiling beam and reciprocating unit under the table.  When you are packet cutting a large dining table, you effectively have the skin of the dining table in your packet (good grief, think of the blue tape...) Apparently some artisans in Italy he visits use an equally large scroll saw daily.  One brother maneuvers the packets while the other gives "driving directions" looking at the blade.  Can't imagine that.  I think if it was me, I'd use the webcam and flat-panel in my shop to put the blade on the screen and steer directly.

Back to the saw, many of us hadn't used a scroll saw before so we all have a cut-test to pass before we can cut our packets.  Consists of a lot of tight straight lines, 90º corners, then weaving curves all on a space the size of a postage stamp.  Takes some practice; my personal panel helped a lot with that as some angles were more acute or required swinging through the oblique angle to keep pressure off a small piece of keeper veneer.  What is interesting is that packet cutting works best with at least 4 layers in the packet; less than that and you'll get drift more easily.

Ah, yes, my panel... this is what it looked like before going into the vacuum bag to be veneered to a Medex panel.  It has some placeholder veneers.  The guy's eyes and 'gator's teeth will be routed out for mother of pearl inlay.  Once that's done, I'll route out the pupil of all the eyes ('gators', too) and fill them with black epoxy to get a nice glassy look.  I'll post details when they're done.  It'll end up on the shop wall :)  Some of the things to note in the picture are the change in grain direction to really enhance something; look at the guy's pants and you'll see the Poplar grain flowing with the leg through the knee.  I think if you didn't do that, something would look 'wrong', but not be immediately obvious.

The above picture was the glue side; the back is covered in gum tape to hold the pieces together during glue-up assembly and gluing.  This is the panel assembled.  The tape comes off easily enough with a sharpened scraper especially after soaking in water.

As fine luck would have it, Paul has an article "World-class marquetry made easy" in the April 2012 Fine Woodworking magazine (number 225).  I got him to sign mine; that modified picture of him? yeah, he looks like that right before plowing a chisel into your project :)

That article is a great whirlwind tour of doing a nice marquetry project.  It turns out that specific project is covered in great detail on his Marquetry DVD that comes with a 35-page booklet you can use in the shop rather than trying to use the DVD as a shop reference.  It's volume 2 with volume 1 being Decorative Veneering (also with a 46-page booklet).  The two make a great set.  They are well produced and I've watched them both at least twice already (had them long before the class).  They are easily among the best woodworking DVDs I have.  The tool/veneer kit we purchased for the class is also available on his site and is enough to do at least a couple panels like the ones shown in the DVD; it would be the second best way to learn this second only to taking his class.

Speaking of taking his class, if you get a chance, I highly recommend taking a seminar with Paul.  Rumor has it that he will be teaching for two days at WIA'12 in Pasadena.  If you are going, sign up early for this class.  It's a lot of fun.

By the way, we had a contest for best marquetry panels based on different criteria.  My 'bird' panel won the humorous category.  It was a grueling competition in that category... I was the only one :)  My prize was a copy of his Practical Furniture Design book along with a nice drawing set.  The book is a bit of a misnomer.  Sure it talks about design, creativity, and several project studies, but it also covers custom furniture orders, pricing, shipping, and designing with shipping in mind.  I'm not all through it yet, but so far, it looks like a very worthwhile read.

Thanks, Paul!  (and thanks to the Arizona Fine Woodworkers Association for bringing him here)

(Gave him a bottle of Arizona wine as a thank-you, from Cochise County; fortunately he looked happy because in his other hand is the 'void maker' chisel!)