ckurak
Posts: 107
Joined: 2006-10-28
Location: Florida
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Don,
It has been quite some time since I did any sand shading, but here is what I remember.
A few years back, I attended a few of Paul Schurch's training sessions. One of them included sand shading. When I returned home I purchased a hot plate, large cast iron frying pan, and playground sand.
I already owned the long tongs used for picking up and handling small pieces of veneer. The tongs are helpful for placing marquetry pieces together as well as holding them in hot sand.
I believe the sand in the pan was about an inch deep. It does take some time to get the sand hot enough. Some test pieces of veneer will let you know when the sand is ready.
When ready, pick up the veneer piece with the tongs, not your fingers, and push the desired edge into the sand vertically. Do NOT push it so it touches the pan bottom. I remember counting to about 5 or so seconds, then pulling the piece out to check the color. It was a bit of trial and error, but got more comfortable to do with some practice. Sometimes I would insert the piece with the tongs, then let go. Sometimes I would hold it the entire time. Again, trial and error should teach you quickly. The timing depends on the temperature of the sand, the thickness of the veneer, the desired shaded, etc. Practice with scrap, burn a few pieces, and you will learn the timing. 
I also remember re-hydrating the shaded pieces (with distilled water, of course) before assembling them in the layout. The heat sometimes would cause the piece to shrink in size. I cannot remember if I sprayed water on, or dunked it into the water. But, I do remember needing to reverse the shrinking process that sometimes occurs. Then, the wet pieces would need to be clamped and dried before using. I remember Paul's secret clamping method. Placing the pieces underneath the self-healing cutting mat on the workbench for an hour or so would usually suffice. (Or, did he call it the magic clamp, or magic press?)
I did take a quick look at the Janet Collins video Craig mentioned. I only watched the first few minutes (maybe I will watch it later when I have 2 hours). I did notice that she was placing the pieces in the sand with her fingers and had multiple pieces in at the same time. She did mention using tweezers was a good idea, then she started to use a small pair of tweezers. I prefer the tongs I purchased from Paul years ago. In all fairness to Ms. Collins, I have NOT watched the entire video yet. From the little bit I watched, she presents as quite professional and learned. (Now, I will have to put that video on my want-to-watch list.)
What I did notice was that she had 5-6 pieces in the hot sand for quite some time. They were all in the sand at the same time. Possibly she was just checking to see if the sand was hot enough yet as it was the beginning of her presentation. As I mentioned, I only watched a few minutes so far.
With Paul's method, each piece was worked on separately and the time in the sand was much, much shorter. And, with Paul's method the veneer piece was never touched by hand. The shaded piece would be much too hot to safely touch the piece with fingers.
If you have Paul's Marquetry video, you might want to take a look at it. Sand shading techniques is a topic listed on the video. I have the DVD someplace. I do not know if what I remember learning from Paul was from the video, in person, or both. It was a number of years ago. But I still have the "rose" marquetry piece that I did in class. It was one of Paul's patterns that he let me use. The pattern even included his method of marking the pattern as to what pieces and what edge of each piece needed to be shaded.
Again, this is all from memory from a decade or so back. I am sure that the methods have not changed, but my memory of them might have. Yikes!
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