Desktop Display Box with Inlay Build Pics

[Mike Allen1010]

My Mom collects fountain pens and asked me to build a small desktop box she could display and keep them in. Even in her 80s, she still a working CPA.

I wasn’t planning on posting this so kinda got started late with pictures. The box is roughly 20” x 10” x 3” deep. I found some small chunks of Claro walnut (which I think were intended as turning blanks) that I was just able to re-saw and squeeze the components of the box out of. BTW, I believe in heaven all Neanders will be issued a lifetime supply of Claro walnut. I don’t know anything about it or where it comes from, but it’s hands down my favorite hand tool wood. The shaving come off like chocolate ribbons and I think when I put the finish it’s going to be something special.

Here the pieces for the carcass, the pen tray and 4 tiny ogee bracket feet.
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Sawing the dovetails to join the carcass – you can see by the scale it’s more work than I enjoy; too fussy with no room for the errors an impatient guy like me always makes.
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I’m going to include a small drawer. I tried to cut the drawer front out of the front side of the carcass so the figure would match – will see.323782


Sawing up a profile for the ogee bracket feet after gluing them up.
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I planed the Cove on the front of the bracket feet with a number five hollow. Now planing the upper part of the curve

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[Mike Allen1010]

Smoothing the corresponding round on the inside of the bracket feet was a headache requiring gouges and files. Here’s what they look like when completed.
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And glued up onto the carcass.
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There will be a framed lid on the top of the box with a glass panel (so you can see the pens) that will be hinged at the back of the carcass – lift up the frame to access the pens. I like mitered bridal joints because I generally like expose joinery and I think the miters on the show surface look cool.
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The hard part for me is keeping track of which pieces (rails or styles) will have the Tennons (note to self – only saw tennon cheeks on the inner surface stopping at the outside corner. Opps- I hate when I screw this up!) and which have the mortises (go ahead and rip the cheeks all the way through from the inside to the outer surface). Yes, I hosed this up badly! Here are the pictures:

Dry fit of the miters looks good,
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however I’ve got some" extra" saw kerfs when I should have stopped sawing cheeks at the corner and instead sawed them all away through the baseline – Argggh!
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Some ¼”, quarter around moldings. I did these with the very small Chinese hollow planes available from Lee Valley. The plane only cost about $15 and although I think it’s too short for routine, larger scale moldings, to tell the truth, it worked pretty damn well. Unlike my vintage molding planes no need to rework the iron to fit the profile of the plane sole– huge timesaver for me. Nonetheless I still pine for a set of H&R’s from Matt Bickford.
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[Mike Allen1010]

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Here’s an idea of what it’s supposed to look like. I don’t have the fountain pens so not exactly sure if the hollows in the tray are deep enough. Seems to work with my Office Depot pen, I may be deepening these with some gouges once we see the real pens fit.
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I really like the look of Holly line and Berry inlay in walnut. Yes, I should have thought of that before I glued the carcass together, but that would require some planning – definitely not my strong suit.


Due to my poor planning skills, I was forced to try and execute the line and Berry inlay with relatively little room to work. Here’s the framing outline executed. I use the Lee Valley inlay tools. I am certainly no expert, but the tiny chisel they offer that is the same width of the inlay cutter was essential for me.
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This might not be even visible, but it’s a picture of the blade on the inlay cutter. You can see it is “V-shaped” with two spurs that create the outline. I used a tiny Japanese feather file to sharpen these. Not sure if I did more harm than good.
The tool works great the fence working off reference services. The picture might not show it but three or four passes and the Spurs cut a nice clean groove.
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Unfortunately since I failed to plan appropriately and do the inlay before assembly, I couldn’t use the inlay cutter to do the cross grain grooves – had to do them the old-fashioned way.
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[Mike Allen1010]

Here are pics of the initial stringing inserted.

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Frankly, the hardest part of this was getting the stringing to the correct width. Lee Valley offers a tool as part of their inlay kit to do this, but I was too cheap to buy it. I tried pulling the stringing through the mouth of a bench plane, but that didn’t really remove any shavings. Ultimately I had to sand them to approximate thickness – total pain in the ass.

And after gluing in the stringing, scraped to surface height. Turned out way better than I thought it would.
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Finally here is the top (blue tape covers the glass to hopefully prevent any scratching) sitting on the carcass. I’m still dreaming about adding corner inlay elements with traditional dots and my Mom’s initial’s in the circle. Frankly I epically screwed up the inlay on two counts: 1) should have done it before assembly, and 2) should have done the little, curved corner elements first, and then the framing inlay. That would’ve allowed me to stick the compass pivot point into the work surface and not worry about the mark, because the later outline inlay would cover it. Now, I have to use a shield to prevent me pint from making a mark in the outline inlay I just finished. This makes it exponentially harder – my own damn fault.
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Next steps will be: finishing the line and Berry inlay (Steve Latta makes it look easy, but for me it takes forever), adding a molding profile to the top, and building the drawer.

Small-scale, fussy work like this is not my cup of tea, but hey it my Mom – what am I gonna do!

All the best, Mike

[Christopher Charles]

That's a beautiful piece of wood and your mum will be plum pleased with the result. And I doubt she'll see all the flaws you do :)

Thanks for taking the time to post!

[Frederick Skelly]

That's beautiful work Mike. I especially like the "feet" and the string inlay. (Yeah, Latta does make it look easy.)
Fred

[Brian Holcombe]

Nice work Mike!

[Patrick McCarthy]

Michael, very nice indeed. LOVE the feet. Mom will be delighted.
Best regards, patrick

[Reinis Kanders]

Nice. How did you make the grooves/flutes for the pens? Router plane and gouge?

[Patrick McCarthy]

Mike,

hard to tell from the pictures (as one looks like it is and the others not), but is the top face of the lid horizontal or angled so that the outside edge is thinner than the inside edge with the glass rebate? I want to say "Chamfered" but not sure that is the correct usage, as I usually think of it being more on an edge treatment rather than the whole (albeit it small) face of the surface.

As indicated earlier, love the feet . . . . so much so I am afraid I might be developing a foot fetish . . . .

The senior Mrs. Allen is going to love it.

Patrick

[Andrew Hughes]

I like this one too Mike,Looks like you got the basic three design elements perfect.The feet really catch my eye.

[Mike Allen1010]

Nice. How did you make the grooves/flutes for the pens? Router plane and gouge?

No Reins, I confess I used a cove bit in an electric router. My feeble carving efforts aren't nearly that uniform and symmetrical.

[Jim Koepke]

Looking forward to the finish on this. It looks like it is going to be a beautiful piece.

jtk

[Derek Cohen]

Watching this Mike! Like your mum, I collect fountain pens (all are used daily - takes the drudgery out of all the note-taking I do). Anyway, so I have a duel interest - the woodwork and the pens. Be sure to show the pens!! :)

See if your mum recognises any of these ..

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/Lapdesk_html_75b59759.jpg

:)

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Mike Cherry]

Looking good Mike! Your Moms sure to love it!

[Mike Allen1010]

[QUOTE=Patrick McCarthy;2482048]Mike,

hard to tell from the pictures (as one looks like it is and the others not), but is the top face of the lid horizontal or angled so that the outside edge is thinner than the inside edge with the glass rebate? I want to say "Chamfered" but not sure that is the correct usage, as I usually think of it being more on an edge treatment rather than the whole (albeit it small) face of the surface.

Patrick, always great to hear from you, I hope you your family had a great summer on the Gold Coast!

The frame that forms the top/lid is supposed to be flat – equal thickness at the outer and inner edge of the frame. However, I haven't done the finish planning yet, so could be a little bit off. As a matter of fact, still could be more than a Little bit off after I have done the finish planning.

I'm planning to try and add a little bead molding on the bottom edge of the lid. Could be a real challenge planing across the end grain of the exposed bridle joints. We'll see - it's taking forever to do the inlay. I have little experience of both carving and inlay; but I have to say with carving, at least once you've carved surface – it's done. Within Inlay, one has to carve the recesses in the show surface, and then create the In limit here to fit in the recesses. I'm sure There is a much easier way to do this – but for me, It has been a huge PITA.

All the best, Mike

[Mike Allen1010]

Watching this Mike! Like your mum, I collect fountain pens (all are used daily - takes the drudgery out of all the note-taking I do). Anyway, so I have a duel interest - the woodwork and the pens. Be sure to show the pens!! :)

See if your mum recognises any of these ..

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/Lapdesk_html_75b59759.jpg

:)

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek, I am a huge fan of your work and an avid reader of your posts, however there is zero chance I will show pictures of your work to my family. With all due respect, it is taken me years to convince them that some things are "just not possible". Showing pictures of your work would terminally undermine my credibility.

As an example, when Sherrie and I were first married (30 years next year), she requested I put in a dimmer switch in our first home. I told her, regrettably as much as I would like to accommodate her every wish, a dimmer switch was just "not electrically/physically possible". My story seemed to fly until my Dad came to visit, and unaware of my position on the issue as explained to my lovely wife, installed a dimmer switch in 2 minutes with his pocket knife:confused:. It has taken me many years to recover from this blow and as I'm sure you can appreciate; although I am happy to post pictures of the finished case with Mom's pens, I am regrettably unable to show her pictures of your pen case :).

Your lap desk is typically beautiful and your fountain pens classically beautiful. Nonetheless, I hope you can appreciate my situation and understand my reason for declining, as graciously as possible, your request to share pictures of your work with my Mom.

Warmest regards, Mike

[Jim Koepke]

Nonetheless, I hope you can appreciate my situation and understand my reason for declining, as graciously as possible, your request to share pictures of your work with my Mom.

There are times when my wife is heard walking toward the computer I will close the current window.

If she saw Derek's lap desk she would likely say, "make me one of those." As if I could.

jtk

[Derek Cohen]

Thank you Mike and Jim for your kind words. Mike, your work here demonstrates that you could build anything. So, sorry, your excuses just do not fly! :D

Regards from Perth

Derek