Marquetry has moved with the times and has welcomed technology and new materials to enhance traditional methods and create modern marquetry masterpieces.

Although predominately craft based, Anita Marquetry has incorporated these technological advancements to facilitate the production of superior quality inlays at competitive rates and within reasonable lead times.

Much of our work is still hand cut using a knife. Fretwork machines are rarely used as the control of the cutting is not as accurate as the knife and laser especially in replicated work.

Some laser cutters work straight from the scanned image, but this is too inaccurate for our purposes as we want to be able to "break out" the sections of the image (like pieces of a jigsaw) and "cut adjust" them to compensate for the tiny amount of veneer lost during cutting thus ensuring the best possible fit.

Our laser beds move on X and Y axes while the laser heads remain stationary, the veneers being held firmly in place by suction. This system was chosen as the most reliable way of ensuring the required precision when positioning sections of a design onto panels larger than the bed size or when repeating a design in exactly the same place on several leaves of veneer.

When cutting for a run, all the pieces for one complete inlay are cut, sand shaded where required and test assembled for fit. Only then does cutting go ahead for the complete run. For a one-off, each piece is tested for fit as it is assembled. Some hand cutting is involved in most projects e.g. mitres.

Our cnc maching is for cutting unusual materials like stone, pearl, ivorine, solid surfacing, Avonite, slate, metals, plastics,and fretwork. We can engrave with the lasers as well as the milling machine. Most of the metal work is acid etched to achieve great accuracy.