A Japanese style box based on their traditional Bento box - or lunch box. These are 'boxes' with numerous stacking trays that hold different items of lunch! It is presented in a typical Japanese furoshiki cloth. The outer case is pale jarrah burl veneer on marine ply base.
The top has a four-way book match while the sides are two way.
The top case is constructed using lap joints with decorative strengthening splines finished with jarrah edging strips. The base is marine ply veneered with Kiri (paulownia), lap jointed and splined with jarrah edged in similar fashion to the top cover.
Inside are three removable trays made from solid Banksia again with jarrah edging. They are lined with gold suede goat skin.
They were made as one 'box' which was then saw into four - the fourth being inserted into the base. Bottoms and locating strips were added to the top three to enable then to fit together.
To ensure they go together correctly I used a series of synthetic opal dots which visually line up the trays. The opal dot decoration is repeated on the base.
The outer case has the option of being secured using simple pins - see above, or traditional Japanese style locks.
Following on the Japanese influence, I tried to imitate the Japanese lacquer wear finish. The whole box was finished with many coats of oil-based satin polyurethane. This was sanded between coats with 320 initially, then 600, micro-mesh and so-on, up to 1000, as a flat surface builds up. Most surfaces were then sanded to 4000 grit with micro mesh sanding discs either by hand or using a small palm orbital sander. Finally, the surfaces are polished with diamond cutting paste starting at 3000 and on up to 6000 or 10000 grit depending on my mood at the time!
Thanks as every for taking the time to look and read. Please ask if you have any questions.
