Intarsiate articles, as will be known, are obtainable by laying various woods, for example, into each other on a planar surface so as to re-establish a plan surface but which now contains differently coloured and differently structured inclusions. For example, a wood item, preferably a veneer, may be provided apertures whereinto the appropriately cut-to-size other wood, for example again a veneer, but also some other material such as, for example, a metal, may be inserted. Methods of this type require steps to be carried out by hand and so are inconvenient and costly. Methods have therefore been proposed as supposedly technically simpler and more economical.
GB 1 382 319 discloses a method of producing a wood veneer having therein an inlay, which may consist of metal for example. The method comprises pressing the metal into one side of the veneer until a or one surface of the metal is flush with the surface of the veneer. During the pressing operation, the other side of the veneer is supported by a deformable ply in the pressing tool. The wood projecting on this side as a result of being compressed by the metal is then sanded off until the fully wood-surrounded metal becomes visible. Thus produced wood veneers with metal inlays, however, may be vulnerable in applications associated with mechanical stresses in addition to their decorative purposes, since it is merely the tight fit which holds the inlay within the veneer. The inlay may thus have little by way of stabilization in the veneer and fall out of the latter under mechanical stress.
Stabilization methods whereby the inlay is glued into the veneer may likewise be unsatisfactory, since glue may egress between veneer and inlay and detract from the decorative impact.