Intarsia: Pictures Made from Shaped, Fitted Pieces of Wood

Australian Wood Review describes intarsia as a form of woodworking in which pieces of different woods are fitted together to create a design or pattern. The pieces are cut to shape — on a scroll saw, in Tucker's account — and the contrast between woods — their colour and their grain — makes the picture. The word itself comes from Renaissance Italy, and art historians use it more widely: the National Gallery of Art's glossary calls it a technique of shaped pieces of veneer and says the term covers both marquetry and inlay on the Continent, and the Metropolitan Museum describes the walls of its Gubbio study, made around 1478–82, as intarsia, 'an elaborate type of wood inlay' of thousands of pieces. This page follows the woodworking sense.

John Tucker's account in Australian Wood Review gives one woodworker's sequence. He makes copies of the image, using one as a template to check the sizes and shapes of the pieces of wood laid on it; glues the cut-out shapes to the chosen woods; cuts them out on a scroll saw; then shapes and sands — 'sand and sand some more' — until they fit together. He glues the assembled picture to a backing of 4 mm MDF with white PVA glue, clamped and weighted until dry, and finishes it with semi-gloss or gloss clear lacquer or sometimes an oil. These are his choices; other makers use other backings, glues and finishes.

• Design. Work from your own design or one you have the right to use. Commercial patterns and other makers' designs are their authors' work; BenchRoot's own two designs are in intarsia projects, drawn on the page.
• Wood. Choose each piece by colour and grain — Tucker looks for grain that is tight, coarse or wavy as the picture needs. Colour varies from board to board within a species, so pick the actual board, not a species name. Grain is explained in wood grain.
• Cutting. Cut each piece just outside its line and bring it to fit by sanding, rather than relying on the saw cut alone: the width of the kerf depends on the blade, so a fit is made at the bench. The machine and its blades are covered in the scroll saw guide and how to use a scroll saw.
• Fitting. Test each piece against its neighbours, removing a little at a time; sanding too far opens a gap that cannot be closed. No standard gap or tolerance applies.
• Shaping. Pieces can be left flat or shaped to different heights and contours to give depth; not all intarsia is carved in relief. Shaping and smoothing are covered in how to sand wood, sandpaper and rasps.

There is no standard thickness: makers choose it to suit the picture, and pieces of different thicknesses are one way to give depth. A backing holds the pieces in place; Tucker uses thin MDF, and BenchRoot's projects use thin plywood set in from the edge, but neither is the only way. The pieces are still solid wood, and the Wood Handbook explains that wood shrinks and swells across its grain as its moisture changes below fiber saturation, with little change along the grain. Glue and a backing do not stop that. Keeping the grain of neighbouring pieces running the same way where the picture allows, keeping pieces modest in size and working with wood at the moisture of the room it will hang in all reduce the strain; the wood movement calculator estimates how much a piece moves and a moisture meter measures it.

Glue each joint with a wood glue used as its maker directs; glues are compared in the wood glue guide. Clear finishes keep the woods' own colours, which is why Tucker uses lacquer or oil; finishes are compared in the wood finish guide. Staining a piece is a design choice some makers use and others avoid; the wood stain guide covers how stains behave on different woods.

A first piece goes best with few, large pieces, straight or gently curved edges and outside cuts only, so that each piece is easy to hold, cut and sand. The compass tile in intarsia projects is designed that way; its mountain panel adds an inside cut and pieces of different thicknesses. General scroll saw projects that are not intarsia are in scroll saw projects. A jigsaw is not a substitute for a scroll saw in fine fitted work: its blade is held at one end only, and BenchRoot's jigsaw guide sends fine fretwork to the scroll saw.