In the old days when furniture reached a zenith in Europe, between 1700-1900. Most of the highest quality pieces of furniture had veneer glued to the legs & aprons, which were made out of hardwood. On the tops and bigger pieces, they would glue up their own plywood, because of wood movement.

Also by using hot animal hide glue, to glue on you veneer & marquetry. It’s a much better glue, because hide glue moves with the wood & is much stronger then modern day synthetic yellow glue.

An easy way to glue veneer or marquetry to your radius parts.

In the very beginning when cutting out your parts on the band saw.

By using 8/4 are 12/4 thick stock, and cutting out on your band saw. Cut out your box parts which are centered on the board. By cutting clean and straight as you can. And plan it out to where each cut-off piece of wood, will also be cut into a clamping caul, for gluing and clamping.

Every single cut off part can be used for a clamping caul. For gluing on veneer.

On the clamping caul. I glue a piece of thin foam. This is so when I’m gluing on the veneer, there won’t be any voids.

Brushing on the hot animal hide glue. On to the Marquetry Veneer.

Gluing the Box side.

Clamping the marquetry, veneer to the box side. By using the clamping caul.

Clamping the marquetry, veneer to the box side. By using the clamping caul.

You can also use the clamping cauls to clamp the box together.

Thank you for looking.

Here are a few pictures of some of the marquetry that is going to be on my next box. This style of marquetry is one that I have developed over the years. It is similar to the “Andre-Charles Boulle” style. Their are 10 steps to this style which are very simple. In these pictures I’m only showing 3 steps.

It’s nice to be back into the woodworking family of Lumberjocks. I’ve really missed being a part of everything. Thanks for looking.
Cutting the packet into sections.

Cutting out individual pieces

Layout of marquetry pieces

After Shading, Sticking to tack film

Ready for gluing

A little peek at my bench

On the full scale sized table we use hidden casters on all the bottoms of the legs. One person can easily open and close the table. In the open position the top width is 10’-0”, with a 30 degree angle removable piece of pie on each side. In the closed position the table is 4’-0” wide and 16’-0” long.

Depending on the size of the room & the size of the table. And the degree of the pie pieces. Will determine the size of the opening.

Table in the closed position

Removing the piece of pie

Table in the open position, ready for video Conferencing

A different angle

Close up

Close up

To my surprise. For the first time he was really into it. I was thinking he wouldn’t reach this level of concentration until he was a little older. He has been working on this project for about two months now. He’s been working around 20 hours a week. Mostly on the weekends. I would have to say that I have never been more proud of him. He’s been working very hard. He also play’s on his high school basketball team, & he practices everyday. And most important he doing good academically. Here are some pictures of his different stages of his chair/bench. We are having a seat and back rest custom made out of black leather. They should be done in about a month. Thank’s for looking.

Zongkers Custom Woods Inc
Listing #717 Listed on: 08/08

WOODWEB Content Editor, Ted Cushman, Interviewed Dennis Zongker in September 2008

One Piece at a Time

Cabinetmaking is a tough, competitive business, and furniture-making is a challenging craft. So in the world of woodworking, it’s pretty rare to find a business that can succeed at both. But that’s what Zongkers Custom Woodworking (www.zongkers.com) is doing. From their nine-man shop in a former Metz Beer brewery in Omaha, Nebraska (one of the oldest buildings in town), brothers Dennis and Dan Zongkers have built up a million-dollar annual volume, expanding the market for their one-of-a-kind furniture pieces and custom cabinets far beyond their own region. “We’re in about 41 states now,” says Dennis Zongker, “and we just sold a couple pieces to a buyer in Hawaii.”

In a mass-produced world, the Zongkers brothers stand out: they’re dedicated to custom craftsmanship. A prime example is Dennis Zongkers’ hand-carved chess set: not just the chess pieces, but the chessboard, table, and two chairs are hand-made from light and dark wood. An avid chess-player himself (“I’m a chess fanatic,” he says), Dennis built the first chess table for fun. “It was like Alice in Wonderland,” he says — “I just wanted to go overboard.” But since then, he’s built two more sets like it for paying customers — at $42,000 a pop.

The brothers do a good business in more conventional furniture pieces — for example, they sell a lot of conference tables to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — but given a chance, Dennis Zongkers will gladly spend hours on a task like carving griffins for the legs of a triangular table. “I love adding the marquetry and carving to furniture,” he says — “not making it too gaudy, but trying to make it as clean as possible.” The triangle table also required him to invent some new joinery, he says: “I developed a couple of triangle joints that I do on the table saw. That’s as much fun as the carving.”

Built using skills honed on custom furniture, the Zongkers brothers’ cabinetry also tends to be out of the ordinary. And the custom mind set of a furniture builder runs through their cabinet production process as well. Everything is wood — no particle board — and everything is made in house, including doors and drawers. And asking Dennis Zongkers about the joinery he prefers for cabinet construction is like asking a jazz pianist whether he’d rather play sharps or flats. “Hmm …,” he says. “We usually just use rabbets and dadoes … sometimes we use pocket screws … it just depends. We have a chisel mortiser, so we do a lot of mortises and tenons too.” Ask him about a particular curved door on a cabinet shown on his web site, and he says, “Usually on our veneered radius doors, we use bending plywood, and glue it up on a form with yellow glue in the vacuum press. Then we clean it up, and then put it back in the bag and veneer it. But that one might be solid, I don’t remember. If they’re solid, we just cut the angles to get the radius and then we sand it smooth.”

“Rarely do we build the same piece twice,” says Zongker. That makes sales and marketing a special challenge. Since starting their business in 1989, the Zongkers brothers have kept the same division of labor: “Dan does the sales and designing and deals with the customers up front, and then it comes to me and I make the shop drawings in AutoCAD and make sure it all works.” The brothers work well together, says Dennis, because they’re so different. “We’ve been a team, working together, since 1981, really. He’s 48 now and I’m 46. And we get along really well because we are totally opposite. I like to play basketball for fun, he likes to go fishing – you know?”
Besides the CAD work and his carving, Dennis also handles supervision on the shop floor. That’s less work now than it used to be, he says: “It has taken us a long time to get the right guys. We have some really good guys now — great attitudes. And they’re so talented now that I don’t have to spend much time watching over them — I can tell them what I want done in the very beginning, go over it with them real quick, and answer a few questions here and there, and that’s about it.”

With such a strong custom focus, there’s no real place in his shop for something like a CNC router, says Zongker. But power equipment, of course, plays a vital role. “We couldn’t get along without our basic machinery — the panel saw and the planers and the table saws and all that. I love our Pulsar panel saw — we’ve had that for 12 years now.” Zongkers’ favorite piece of iron is an automated dovetail machine used to make all the company’s drawers. “When we first started, when it was just me and my brother, we used to do them all by hand,” he says. “Then we bought an OmniJig, but it just wasn’t fast enough. So then we went to the Olmec automated dovetail machine — I think it cost about $16,000. That’s another machine that we couldn’t live without. It’s nice to put your parts in there and that thing just smoothly cuts ‘em out like butter, you know — and it’s a perfect fit every time.”

These days, Zongker spends more time at his computer drafting workstation than he does on the shop floor. But he still likes to make sawdust. “I’m on a real nice dining room table right now with decorative parquetry, and yeah, I go out and do my own cutting — cut my radiuses out and all that. I love going out there and running the table saw or the jointer.” And like his crew, Zongker likes the fact that every day brings something different. “My guys will say, ‘I’m so glad I don’t work in a shop where it’s the same thing all the time.’ It’s a joy to do something different every day or every week — it really is. Just making drawers or whatever every day all day long, all the time … that would be like prison for any of us here.” When people see him working on an exacting carving or piece of parquetry, says Zongker, “They say, ‘Wow, you have a lot of patience.’ But when you love something and you’re being really creative, you’d be surprised how easy it really is.”
Contact Name: Dennis Lee
Location: Omaha, NE 68108
Year Founded: 1989
Sq. Footage: 10,000
Employees: 9
Gross Sales: 1,000,000
Web site: www.zongkers.com

Main Shipping Area

Carving & Marquetry Room

Cutting Room

Carving & Craftsman Bench

Large Assembly

Craftsman Bench

Lathe & Router Area

Company Name: Zongkers Custom Woods Inc

Product Specialties: Architectural Millwork – Lathe Turning Cabinets – Cabinet Designers Cabinets – Custom Cabinets Carving – Architectural Ornamentation Carving – General Furniture – Custom Furniture Furniture – Furniture Designers Veneer and Marquetry – General Woodworking – General

Shop Equipment:

————————————————————————————————————————

————————————————————————————————————————
Play online games for FREE at Games.com! All of your favorites, no registration required and great graphics – check it out!

Here are some practice pieces that I just made using, “The Window Method” This pattern is one of the same as a 54” diameter dinning room table that I am currently working on for a customer. Which I should be completed with in three to four week.

The window method is one of the best methods for cutting out circles and ellipse’s. It does take some practice to perfect this method, but once you get a grip on your technique it is quite rewarding.


Here is a list of tools needed to practice a 3” diameter circle:

A. Compass
B. Blue masking tape (because it is less sticky)
C. Exacto knife or scalpel
D. Two small pieces of veneer: one 5” square and one 4” square, they should be two different types of wood.
E. Veneer tape

Here is a list of steps to achieving “Decorative Parquetry”

1.First draw a 3” diameter circle on the 5” square piece of veneer
2.Then with your knife, follow the center of your pencil line and make two or three light cuts about 1/2” long. (Don’t cut through the veneer just score about half way through the veneer, and always cut lighly towards your body) With each cut you will put a groove into the veneer and your knife will fall into the groove each time you cut deeper. Once you have scored around the diameter of the circle, then you can start the next step.
3. Again with your knife repeat the same technique in step 2 but, this time go all the way though the veneer. After this cut your circle should pop right out. The circle is the waste piece: it is the outer part of the circle that is your finished piece. This outer piece will be your next template.
4. Turn your outer part upside down and tape your 4” piece of veneer to the finished outer part, now flip both pieces back over.
5. Now by using the finished outer part as a template use the veneer edge as a guide and go back and repeat step 2.
6.Now take off the tape and finish cutting out the circle the same way as step 3 and the circle should pop right out.
7. Now fit both pieces together, they should go together with just a very small cut line, which can be filled with glue when you are gluing to your sub straight.
8. Now with both pieces together, with the blue tape, tape the circle line, this is just to hold them in place. Then flip the piece over to the back and tape the glue side.
9.Now flip the pieces back over and take off the tape on the face side. Then by using venner tape, tape the circle line on the face side. Next take off the blue tape on the back side.
10. Your Parquetry piece is know ready for gluing to any sub straight of choice. ( I like to roll on my glue with a small roller to both the veneer and the sub straight.

Here are some pictures of the table I’m working on, showing some stages.