Thread: One very simple box, four shop made cup pad, and Chinese painting style marquetry.

Hi, I just made an experiment to make tea cup pads with marquetry technique and looks it works well. It took me more than 14 hours to make four cup pads, and I put them in an simple box.

My ideas of marquetry come from the traditional Chinese paintings. These four pads have the pictures of apple blossom, daffodils, iris and cogangrass and bird. The material is poplar and lace wood. There is a layer of adhesive felt on the back.

The box is really a piece of cake, it took me less than two hours to finish, with poplar, walnut, purple heart, inlay banding and a piece of agate. On the bottom I have my signature of my Chinese name on it. It is a technique invented by myself: I carved the stamp on the wood first, and mixed fine purple heart powders (from saw dust) with epoxy to make a paste, filled the wood powder paste in the grooves. When the filling is dry I sanded the wood to be smooth therefore the purple patterns will be left in the wood. It worked very well to apply decorative patterns on the wood surface.

Both the box and the pads were finished with danish oil. I don't know whether the marquetry is good to make cup pads. Maybe it will crack under the high temperature of the cups, maybe the water will damage the pad in the long run. I will wait to see the effect. Anyway it is nice looking for me.