A manual of sorrento and inlaid work for amateurs

It is now twenty years since the author of this book began his first rude attempts at scroll-sawing, with a roughly whittled saw-frame, fitted with a blade made from a watch-spring, its teeth, few and far between, unevenly and laboriously cut with a common file. Since then he has watched the growth of the art in this country, stimulated by the introduction of curious and beautiful articles of fret-cutting from Germany, and inlaid work from France and Italy, and the gradual improvement in hand-saw frames, and blades of wondrous delicacy. Within the past four years, aided much by the invention of treadle machines of great simplicity and beauty, a scroll-sawing fever has swept over the country, absorbing the attention of the young and old. It would perhaps be impossible to name a village, however small, where the fever had not made its appearance. In many of our large cities scroll-sawing is taught by experienced instructors, either in classes or in private lessons.

There are many difficulties that beset the beginner; he buys worthless tools, and can do nothing with them; or imagines it is necessary to buy some expensive outfit that exceeds his means; he tries to polish and makes a botch of it; his wood warps, and obstinately refuses to be straight; his saws break, and he cannot account for it; his gluing doesn't hold together; and he imagines that inlaying can only be done by the experienced artisan. To help all such, to show them just how everything in the scroll-sawing line is done, to make everything clear so that children can teach themselves, to show ladies how they can beautify their homes, to tell those with scanty means how few tools are necessary; and, lastly, to give them some few simple, and it is hoped tasteful, designs, is the object of this book. How far he falls short of this his readers can judge for themselves.

This is the most beautiful part of scroll-sawing, and should be well understood by every amateur. At first thought it may strike the beginner that, in order to inlay one piece of wood in another, it is necessary first to cut out the pattern from the one and afterward very carefully to cut the same pattern a trifle smaller from a different wood, and fit it into the former piece. Inlaying could be done in this way, but it would be attended with considerable difficulty, as in both cases the pattern would need to be followed with great nicety. There is a far simpler way than this, and it consists in sawing the design out of two woods at the same time.

For example, take the design of the paper-knife with an oak leaf in the handle. Suppose we wish to make the knife of walnut and inlay with a satinwood leaf. Take a piece of walnut one and one-half inches wide and nine inches long, and cut a piece of satin the same size; fasten the two together with a brad in each corner; trace the design upon the satin, or paste it on, and with a very fine drill, which should be as small as a pin if possible, make a hole through both woods at the lower end of the vein. Use a No. saw blade, and cut all the veins. Then drill another small hole at the end of the short twig, and with a very fine saw blade, No. 000, proceed to cut out the leaf and acorn. In doing this care must be taken to keep on the line. The fine blade will turn the sharpest corner. If the saw gets off the line keep right on and get back to the line as soon as possible, as this will not prevent the woods inlaying, though it may mar the beauty of the figure. Saw all the way around the leaf and twig and. acorn to the place of starting, and the leaves will drop out. Then the little figure in the blade of the knife can be cut out in the same manner, if it is desired to inlay that part, or it can be left as an open space. Now cut out the outside of the knife, and the work of the saw will have been done. Get the glue-pot ready, take the walnut knife, and lay the glue around the inside edges of the leaf opening. Insert quickly in this the satin leaf, lay the whole upon a piece of paper on the table, and with the brush work some glue into the veins, and also lay a little more glue along the edges of the inlay. Place the handle of the knife between two blocks of wood, with paper on each side to prevent the glue adhering to them, and clamp them tightly together. The pressure will force the surplus glue into the veins, and will fill all the space around the edge. The walnut leaf can then be glued into the satin knife in the same way. After the glue has had time to harden, which should take half a day, the paper can be removed by slightly moistening and scraping it, and the surface of the handle smoothed off with file and sandpaper. If, after this is done, some small holes are noticed in the edge or veins of the leaf, they can be filled with a touch of glue. This will harden in a short time, and after making the blade of the knife sharp with file and sandpaper, the handle can again be smoothed and polished if desired. The result is two paper-knives, one of walnut inlaid with satin leaf, the other of satin with a walnut leaf. Notice that when a light wood is inlaid in a dark wood, or vice versa, the cut made by the saw hardly shows, as it is filled with glue which is nearly the color of the darker wood. It sometimes happens that no fine drill is at hand to make the hole for the saw. If a coarse drill is used, or if a small piece of the inlay should be broken oif and lost, it will be necessary to fit another piece of wood into the hole, or fill it with a mixture of glue and sawdust.

Now take the ivy-leaf paper-knife and inlay with veneers. And for this it is supposed that the amateur has a first-class treadle machine, which will run perfectly true and carry the finest saws. Cut six or eight pieces of colored veneers, some green, red, black, white, etc., each two by nine inches. Cut also two pieces of one-sixteenth wood the above size, one of holly and one of walnut. Place the veneers between these and fasten together by gluing the edges. These thicker pieces of wood are used to strengthen the veneers while sawing, and to prevent breaking off any delicate portions. Apply the design and saw the veins as described above; then drill a fine hole at one end of the vine, and saw along the vine to the point where it is covered by the leaf, then along the edge of leaf and back along the other side of vine to starting point. The six or eight stems will drop out, and can be placed in a box or by themselves, with some mark on them and a corresponding mark on the pattern, so that it will be known where the pieces belong. A portion of the vine being thus removed, the leaves immediately joining it can be cut out, making one piece of the leaf and its stem. The remainder of the design can be sawed in the same way, and in doing this it will be noticed that it has been necessary to drill but one hole for the saw aside from those made for cutting the veins. After cutting out the leaves and vine, the woods can be separated with a knife-blade. Never mind the outside of the paper-knife at present; that will be shaped hereafter.

Now take one of the pieces, the black, for example, and lay it on a sheet of paper on the table. Pick out the green leaves and lay them in the proper places (no glue to be used at present), and lay in also a white vine, and the little pieces of black that go between the stems and the vine. When these are all in place, take a strip of paper, the size of the black wood, smear it with mucilage or paste, place it upon the inlay, and keep a weight upon it until dry. Then take the other woods and put in the leaves and vines of the different colors, and paste on the paper in the same way as above. For the two pieces of one-sixteenth wood glue the holly leaves and vine into the walnut, and vice versa, as described in making the oak-leaf paper-knives, and when the glue has hardened, scrape off the paper, smooth them, fill the holes if necessary, and shape the outside.

Now to make paper-knives out of the veneers. If there are six of them they will make three knives. Cut three strips of one-sixteenth holly the size of the veneer. These are for the centers, and to have an inlay glued to each side. The strips of paper pasted on the veneers were to hold the leaves in their places till they were ready for use. Have the glue ready, smear it freely on both sides of the holly, and apply a veneer on each side, with the paper outside; then clamp them tightly together, being careful that the veneers do not slide out of position. When dry, scrape off the paper, nil the lines with glue where needed, and when this has dried, sandpaper smooth, shape the outside as in the design, sharpen the edges with file and sandpaper, and then polish the whole; and behold a very pretty paper-knife, the two sides of different colors.

After these two examples have been carefully done the amateur can attempt more intricate pieces, and will have little difficulty.


SHADING.

It is frequently desirable to shade different parts of inlaid woods, to give them a rounded appearance, and this is done in a very simple manner.

Take a small iron pot or pan, partly filled with dry, fine sand, and place it upon the fire. When the sand is well heated, press into it a piece of light wood, and notice how the wood is browned. If pressed too deep or held too long in the sand, the lower edge will be charred; therefore, it is necessary to keep withdrawing the wood, so as not to scorch too much, and to watch the effect. A few experiments on waste wood in this way will familiarize the amateur with the process and enable him to do some very good shading. Holly and maple, and other light woods, can be used for this purpose. In shading inlays care must be taken to use only perfectly dry woods, as the scorching may so shrink the woods that they will not fit in their places. It would be well, therefore, to dry or bake the woods well before sawing.

There is another way to inlay, by sawing the woods on a bevel. For instance, take two pieces of dark and two of light wood, and tack them together as in the illustration below.