After the recipients reaction towards the gifted Muzz Box,
my buddy immediately commissioned a jewellery box for his sweetie. The pictures were dated early Dec 2012, so I’m guessing it may have been a Chrissy present.
Never been a great executioner of boxes,
in particular presentation boxes. Not having come to terms with my feminine side, I had no idea how to approach it… but copious casks of vino on offer cajoled me to accept the challenge.
Just starting my SketchUpmodus operandi, I drafted a basic box with a few measurements, just to get an impression of what was to come,
And after a few magic mushrooms, whacky backy and cheap red casked vino, I got all phsyco-delic and added colour to the model,
…
whoopee!!!
The next progression with my then work flow was straight into CorelDraw where I setup the inlay cut vector for the top’s cut on the laser,
which was manually positioned in the top left corner of the timber (0,0) using my laser software,
The inlay vector was designed separate… copied, enlarged by 0.2mm, mirrored, trimmed
and laid out to be cut out of similar thickness jarrah, with the emphasis on minimal timber wastage.
After the cuts, it was a case of placing the inlay letters over the base and gently hammering them in. I didn’t take any pictures, however, the same steps are followed as in this other assembly.
Amass the base’s cut out letter in a container and the inlay letters in another,
Using a flat block and an appropriate mallet (shop made hand-plane blade setting mallet… note for me:- should post that project) place each inlay letter into the base and gently hammer it in,
Taking care not to break the flimsy parts… that .2mm increase may not seem much, but I’m guessing it helped as I had a 100% success… however, take note that there may be issues for smaller letters,
(in which case I would backfill
with Timbermate instead… hey Pottzy, hint of another looming project in the top right corner).
Then you have to fish
all the “small in-between-pieces” of the base's cut out letters (circled)
and carefully put them into position inside the inlay and hammer them home… try to align all the pieces if the inlay “wall” is thin and unsupported on the other side
It was then a case of making the dovetailed box (Leigh D4R). I laminated the sides (Frontline clamps… yeah even for such small pieces) so that the separation cut of the top from bottom would fall on the jarrah laminate,
The inlaid top and the bottom were laminated to some 9mm pine boards to create a solid top and bottom,
which was glued to the sides,
Went a bit overboard with clamping as I had little faith in PVA glue back then… before I realised that I’d eventually have to remove the clamps to continue.
After the separation, the top and bottom perimeters were rabbeted to accept these accentuating jarrah strips,
Some of the more observant ones may either think I stutter or have two tops… if you did (either) you are wrong… that is slurred alcohol speech and for those that chose two tops, for my first inlay cut run, I forgot to mirror the inlay and rather than risk hammering in the thicker bottomed inlay (more on this later), I decided to recut the inlay mirrored.
To digress a tad… my un-scientific theory…
The laser kerf is approximately 0.2mm and I theorise that as the depth of the cut progresses, the strength of the laser diminishes slightly as it approaches the bottom of the media rendering the kerf slightly less. Through 4mm timber (which is what I used and then laminated to a thicker top/bottom) the top if the inlay may be wider than the bottom, so hammering it in upside down may provide less resistance. As said, not scientific other than I had no issues this way, but a few failures the other way.
Now back to my story….
Rather than waste the now dodgy, non-mirrored jarrah inlays, I decided to recut a mirrored base running from right to left so I could then insert these letters. The bottom line was that hammering in the non-mirrored inlay in my “normal” method, the finished panel resulted in a reversed orientation which could be used as the bottom and passed off as a box with the inlay running though the box from top to bottom. At least that’s how I remember the incident as the final result was not by design… fortunately the recipients were stoked by the idea.
I made a divided insert tray,
apparently with these jarrah sides (dovetailed)
The inside of the box and trays were flocked,
The top and bottom were attached with 3 barrel hinges,
and held closed with a brass latch,
Sealed with shellac and finished with 3 coats of Wipe-on-Poly.
Till the resurrection of my next puzzling presentation… thanks for looking.
Don’t be crafty Craftisians,... SHARE your craft!
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
Dutchy .... but there are so many other things to do.
I agree and not enough time... that's why I'm posting old projects... little time for new ones... other than my puzzles, which try very hard to keep my mind between my ears.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
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