So one day I was walking in the forest that surrounds my neighborhood. I often look for various spalted wood. There are black bears, coyotes, raccoons, cougars, etc so I have to be careful. Heck! .... bears and their cubs walk down the middle of our street. When I was a kid we'd collect dry leaves and decoupage them onto wood boards. So I got the idea of making a pine box and laminating a dry maple leaf on the lid. I collected a few, took them home, and let them dry out for a few weeks. This is what the maple leaf looked like after laminating on some pine.
Everything was done with hand tools of course! Here I made the lid using moulding planes.
I made an invisible wooden hinge.
Then I made a nifty little pull out of a couple pieces of dowel. Oh!.... and I made the dowel too!
But heck! What is this box for you might ask...
My wife is Scottish and she gave me these wood carving chisels that go back 4 or 5 generations. Her grandfather used them when he was 10 or 11 years old. That was in 1889. They were wrapped in a rotting canvas. So now they have a new home!
Ah I like the leaf idea a lot. So how did you laminate it onto, or into the pine? I would quite like to try the idea with some of our Western Australian timbers leaves!
WOW! This is the perfect creation for these antique carving tools, well done. I like all aspects of this, the laminated maple leaf, the wooden hinge, the carved pulls - all super and it all fits together with it's function for storing carving tools. Great.
Madburg commented about 9 hours ago Ah I like the leaf idea a lot. So how did you laminate it onto, or into the pine? I would quite like to try the idea with some of our Western Australian timbers leaves!
First.... Make sure the leaf is really dried out and super flat. I made a print of the leaf and copied its outline to the pine surface. Then I lightly rough sanded ( a very shallow debossing) within the outline area where the leaf was to be set. Next I applied wood glue in the area. Then I very lightly touched some glue on the back of the leaf with a hake brush. Very little. You don't want squeeze out. I placed it, covered it with a clean rag and lightly applied a roller. When dry I applied 3 coats of this.
Oldtool WOW! This is the perfect creation for these antique carving tools, well done. I like all aspects of this, the laminated maple leaf, the wooden hinge, the carved pulls - all super and it all fits together with it's function for storing carving tools. Great.
Pottz yeah the leaf idea is pretty cool. nice box and some tools with a great history. if they could only tell their stories.
I'm a flyfisherman and also inherited a Scottish octagonal, 2 pc cane rod from him. He carried that rod all over the Scottish highlands. That's a story!!
Pressing flowers is a hobby many try since at a minimum all you need is a big city phone book. Making a shallow (1/16" perhaps) recess, more like a dish with no sharp step at the edges, and a fill with clear resin would look cool. Pressed flowers seem to hold their color quite well when dried.
I always worry about embellishments getting damaged over the years.
SplinterGroup... I worried about possible surface damage too. Its important to protect against any future surface abrasion. That's why I gave it 3 coats of water based polyurethane when it was completed.
I was going to use shellac but wasn't sure if it would partially dissolve the leaf. I could have tested but didn't. Ergo I used the water based polyurethane instead.
