Baseball Marquetry Wall Clock

This is a wall clock that a friend asked me to build. I always enjoy trying techniques I am not familiar with and testing my skill as a woodworker. This is my first attempt at marquetry and I am very pleased with the result.

The base of the clock is a three piece panel consisting of two pieces of maple and a mahogany spline. The top face of the clock consists of four pieces of birdseye maple and thirty-nine pieces of mahogany. Before I glued the veneer to the base of the clock, I sanded a slight radius on the panel to give the clock a spherical appearance. To glue the veneer to the panel, I made a press using some 2×4’s, MDF, and 6″ carriage bolts. I sandwiched the clock between two pieces of MDF and some Styrofoam so that the curved face would receive even pressure. I then sanded the clock up to 320 grit and finished with a Varathane. After a couple of coats of poly, I added the decal. I used clear waterslide decal paper and printed the image on my printer at home. I then sprayed enough coats of poly to remove the ridge along the edge of the decal. After a few days, I wet sanded and buffed the clock to a high gloss.