marbling combs- Woolnough's method

The great 19thc. marbler, Charles woolnough, gave us in his book "the whole art of marbling " a method of making combs. The combs produced here can be made very fine indeed, and are of a superior class.
 To make the combs, you must take a, piece of paper as long as you intend to make the comb, and enogh needles to make the comb ( 2 needles per centimeter produce a very good comb)

1-Fold the paper in half.

2- Then,  fold the back the part you previously folded, about 4cm creating an "M" shape in the paper

3- Now, draw a line about 1 cm. from the edge. This line will be folded back to hold the needles in place later. Now, mark off sections on the line, where you want the needles to be.

Stick the needles into the paper, like so.

Once the whole comb has it's needles stuck into it, you fold back the margin of paper that you made in the third step, thus causing the needles to stick out, like a comb. 



Make sure that the needles are straight and stick out evenly form the paper.

( N.B you can make the blunt ends of the needles point outwards- it's your choice)

Usually, as this point, the comb would be secured with a strip of glued paper. However, There is a much more permanent method - HOT GLUE...

Cover a bar of wood in hot glue, and stick the comb in it.

Once the glue has solidified, you can pull the paper away, to reveal a very good comb