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Drilling holes that become invisible can be a difficult concept for beginners in marquetry. Here's a detailed explanation with diagrams.

This past weekend I taught a marquetry class at Peter’s Valley School of Craft. I was fortunate enough to have a full class of some really curious and dedicated students — the sound of the fret saws buzzing was intense at times.

Teacher housing on campus at Peter’s Valley

I’ve written about this before, but one of the reasons I stay active with teaching classes is that it’s an invaluable resource for learning how to be a better communicator. And when you’re writing a book on marquetry that is supposed to be instructive, it’s a good idea to test whether what you’re saying is coherent or not.

Teaching frequently is also a good reminder that different people will understand things differently and that certain concepts will come more easily than others. Every class presents new opportunities to further hone how I present things— what may have been easily understood by one cohort may be confusing for another.

This weekend’s class was no different. Some things l’ve had to spend a lot of time on in the past were understood instantly. Others, not so much.

One thing that a lot of folks struggled with was properly drilling and placing holes to thread their fret saw. I tried multiple ways of explaining things but it just wasn’t clicking.

The pattern we worked on in class — this one is great practice so feel free to use it yourself (tracing paper taped right to a laptop monitor works great).

This is certainly due in part to how I teach marquetry. Instead of focusing on a step-by-step approach where the entire process is boiled down to a few distinct tasks, l instead discuss geometry and exactly how everything comes together. The reason for this is it equips students with a much more complete skillset— they’ll be capable of doing a heck of a lot more on their own if they really understand how the sausage is made.

That approach opens the possibility for confusion when things come into practice, though —students are expected to take the theory I provided them and translate it themselves without relying on a list of steps. And if I’m not explaining the theory in a way that they fully understand, the practice can go haywire.

I had a long drive home from Peter’s Valley, so I had quite a bit of time to think about how to better explain this going forward. I think I might have something, so I figured why not share it here.

Some thoughts on holes and how to drill them

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