The valuable types of wood are mahogany, rose, burl walnut, fire side walnut, and circassian walnut. Each of these types have a different grain and the wood is sawed in a different manner. This is very expensive as the marquetry work done with them is exotic!
Colour Choice
The double bevel marquetry technique is very famous. This technique is used with the scroll saw and the table is always tilted at a particular angle. An art with straight line geometrical patterns is known as parquetry.
Health and Happiness
Eucalyptus is a hard, dense wood with a specific gravity of about 1.0, meaning it has nearly neutral buoyancy in water. Its fibers are tightly configured. Its grain pattern is rather straight, except for the figured samples that display varying wave patterns. As with all hard, dense wood, sharp crafting instruments are required when turning on a lathe. The colors displayed are light and subtle, ranging from cream to pink or light brown in the specimens I have worked with. Preview a sample photograph of figured eucalyptus to help visualize its appearance.
Burning techniques differ depending on the point used. The key is to start with a simple pattern and learn how to use the many different points before progressing on to intermediate and advanced designs. A very good series of books for the beginning wood burner is from Walnut Hollow Farm. Creative Woodburning Book One contains all the easy to learn basics, plus many patterns to get you started. The rest of the series contains more patterns and techniques in many different styles.
Distress marks include saw kerfs that are artificially introduced today (circular saws waste much more wood and have all but been abandoned in developed countries). Wire brushes can be used to emphasize the early and late wood differentiation and introduce a pronounced raised grain pattern. “Hand scraped” is most often done on a molder with specially scalloped knives and often gives a repeated pattern appearance on more commercially available flooring. Real hand scraping can be done onsite like it was 100 years ago for a more natural look. Many scraping patterns are available from deeply scalloped to a ‘foot worn’ appearance.
Oak (Quarter Sawn)
As mentioned earlier, there are many different techniques of burning and several woodburning tips to use with the pen to get different effects. In addition, the burnings can be colored with oil colored pencils, and oil paint wash. The combination of wood grain, woodburning technique, and oil paints creates some stunningly beautiful art.
As mentioned in the introduction, same-species exotic wood varies widely in terms of appearance. This is especially true of the figured assortments. Even with samples of wood adjacent to one another on the same section of a tree, patterns, color, and luster are typically quite different. I have observed this frequently when crafting dozens of the same writing instrument for a commercial order. The wood blanks received from my supplier are, for example, all figured eucalyptus but all have a unique appearance.
