Jaali, jali and multiwood screens

A pierced screen is the hardest thing in this workshop to do badly and get away with, because you look straight through it. Every line is read against the light behind it, so any wander in the cut, any torn edge, any place where the pattern does not quite meet, is on show from both sides of the room. That is why a jaali is the piece we use to judge a machine and an operator.

Most jaali in Kerala houses now is cut in multiwood - the WPC and PVC foam board the trade sells under that name. There is a good reason for it: it takes a clean CNC cut, it does not swell in the humidity, and termites have no interest in it, which matters for a partition near a bathroom or a panel on a verandah. We cut it, and we also cut MDF and HDHMR for painted work, acrylic where you want light through it, and solid teak or rosewood where the screen is close enough to touch and the grain should be doing some of the work.

The pattern is set out for your opening. That sounds obvious and it is where most screens go wrong - a lattice scaled up or down from a stock sheet ends with half a motif at the edge, or with a cut landing on a short grain where the panel will break. We set the repeat so it finishes whole at both ends and so nothing structural falls on a weak line, then cut it and clean both faces by hand.