At long last, Lee and Brian’s last collaboration is done. The Marquetry saw is available. Each one is made in the USA with anodized aircraft grade aluminum and is hand built to order. Unlike a traditional marquetry chevalet, these saws incorporate blade clamps that can swivel on the fly, in the same manner as the legendary Fenner patent saw from the 1880’s. Except ours has ball bearings to make sure the action is smooth and easy. It also has ball bearings on the guide rod, so the reciprocating action is silky smooth. The rotate-on-the-fly clamps let you cut a profile into your packet without moving the packet at all.
The Marquetry Saw also has no shop footprint when it’s not in use. They can be put away on a shelf, or taken to a workshop. All they need is a work table to clamp themselves to, and they’re ready to cut.
Marquetry Saw Buying Options
The saw is designed to be modular, which means it can have several different sizes of leg. There are three sizes available: 12", 18" and 24" depth of cut. You purchase a base unit saw, and then select which size legs you want. If you want more than one set of legs, you can buy the others as separate items. They’re modular, so they just swap in. We did computerized stress analysis on the legs to make sure that even the 24" leg set pulls the same 60 pounds of tension that our standard 3" Mk4 fret saw does. Picture a 2 foot deep saw that cuts just as fast and accurately as a 3" saw. That means the tension capability of the smaller sizes is simply unbelievable.
Marquetry Saw Blades
More important, for those wanting to do truly intricate marquetry, our design can use traditional 160mm marquetry blades, but it can also use standard 130mm (5 1/8") fret saw blades. This matters because the smallest marquetry blade made is only 2/0 (0.010"), while jeweler’s fret saw blades go all the way down to 10/0. (0.005"). Standard 130mm fret saw (jeweler’s) blades are also far easier to find. Any blade supplier will have them, rather than the hassle of finding the longer 160mm size that traditional chevalets require. (We have those too, of course.)
The saw handles are hand made by a local woodworker. The current batch are Purple Heart, but if you have some particular wood you’d prefer (except Cocobolo), we can probably arrange it. Let us know your preferences on saw handle size too, and we will do what we can to accommodate you.
Shipping
Each one is hand built to order, and will be shipped in order. Current builds are running 4–6 weeks out.
