Crane Jewelry Box

[Christopher Charles]

Hello all,

Literally, a couple of years ago now I built a jewelry box for my mum with some marquetry:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?260982-Heron-Jewelry-Box-Build

At the time, I built a second carcass figuring I would make another at some point to give away or maybe sell. I've since moved, mostly rebuilt the shop and found the perfect recipient for the box :)

During the move, I did the design and began the early stages of the marquetry while in temporary housing. I've just pulled all the 'pre-made' parts out of storage and have begun again on the project (a birthday is a motivating factor and has pushed aside the NBSS tool chest project for now).

Here's the start on a temporary workbench while in purgatory:

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And a week ago I was able to mill and plane grooves for the draw components (boy is nice to have a shop again!):

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So nearly all the pieces are staged with nothing to do but start on the marquetry proper....

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And the hunt for the right veneers begins under the watchful eye of Charles the shop dog:
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[Mel Fulks]

The crane project is one of my top favorites. Looking forward to following your new project.

[Mike Allen1010]

Chris, thanks for sharing. I look forward to seeing your marquetry project move forward - nothing concentrate the mind like a birthday deadline!

a loyal shop dog is a crucial component of any team. Glad to see you're well supported!

Cheers, Mike

[Christopher Charles]

Mel, thanks for the kind words.

Mike, true that on the shop dog! And the good news is the birthday deadline has been blown, but we are celebrating 'birthday month' instead... and now that you mention it, that deadline could become an issue too!

[Christopher Charles]

I was able to spend the better part of yesterday in the shop working on the marquetry panel for the crane box. The panel is now almost complete, aside from one small disaster to be revealed after it has been covered up....

Here, I'll walk through some of the process I use to turn an imaging into marquetry.

One of the challenges is selecting an image and composition that I can imaging as a set of wood colors. One way I think about it as hunting for images that would look good in B&W (that is brown and white!) since the available palette of tones for undyed wood is muted. I also look for images that I can image as a stained-glass image. Finally, I aim to have elements and a composition which draws the eye and moves it around-one with some "motion".

I've always enjoyed birds and started drawing them as a child. However, I'm not a talented fine artist. In fact, marquetry is a way of hacking that fact because it is really just tracing and 'painting by numbers'.

I do this on an older Ipad with a sketching program. Any program will do, it just needs to have the ability to import an image and to work with layers. Here's a photo of the image I imported that I found somewhere on the interwebs. (It actually has a layer with notes for marquetry pieces showing as well).

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The next step is to create a layer like a piece of tracing paper and create the "paint by numbers" pieces by drawing. I then fill with tones that are a reasonable match just for keeping track. Here's the result as two layers-the crane image and the notes layer for piece numbers-the photo layer is hidden.

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I believe that photo editing programs like photoshop can transform an image into a similar type of image with filters to any photo if you want, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

Once I have an image, I print several copies of slightly different sizes to finalize the size of the element on the box. This is one of the advantages of using a digital approach.

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And then that gets traced onto vellum.


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[ken hatch]

...a loyal shop dog is a crucial component of any team. Glad to see you're well supported!

Cheers, Mike

+1 on the shop dog.

ken

[Christopher Charles]

Hi all,

Progress has been stalled b/c my eldest son is currently quarantining in the shop after returning home from the Seattle area...no issues at all, for which I'm thankful.

Before that I was able to get the main work on the panel completed and into clamps. I worked from the outside to inside, and overcut the outside border pieces.

The new piece has the outline traced with carbon paper, is tacked to the base and cut out. Here is are the first two pieces:

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Next is to build up pieces, being careful to keep track of which borders are final borders compared to borders that will be have another piece cut in (and are cut oversize).
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I keep pieces in place using blue tape while cutting, with a single tack. Any movement of a piece will lead to gaps. Once pieces are cut and put in place, veneer tape holds them in place.

[Christopher Charles]

Each piece is carefully selected to orient the grain pattern and to use changes in tone within a piece can be used for shading. Because outside pieces are cut oversize, it frankly takes some imagination to trust that things are going to plan (right photo above). Pretty goofy looking at this stage.

Once all the pieces are in place, the outline is traced (middle photo above). And, much more stressful than a glue-up, is cutting the bird into the background. And then into clamps. (Forgot to take any pictures after clamps--will get photos up after I get into the shop again).

Thanks for following along and many thanks to all for posting your projects here-they've been a solace.

Best,
Chris

[ken hatch]

Chris,

Beautiful.

ken

[Phil Mueller]

Chris, nicely done. I admire the skill to do marquetry. Just going to have to get myself a scroll saw some day.

[Mike Allen1010]

can't wait for the reveal!

[Christopher Charles]

Thanks gentlemen--I have high hopes for some shop time this weekend..."birthday month" is coming to a close!

Best,
Chris

[Christopher Charles]

Hi all,

I'm finally returning to this project, along with others. Birthday month passed, but is coming up again, so there is still hope. Good news is the loml doesn't know the project is coming, so no harm done, right?

The veneer panel is complete with the exception of the hardest part-adding the eye. When I've done this before, the eye was either bigger and I cut directly, or much smaller and thus could just use a single drilled dot.

Here's the head right now. Any ideas on how to best create an eye that is essentially a bullseye? I'm considering drilling a large hole, filling with epoxy, drilling a smaller hole inside that after it dries, etc. This would be indexed on the drill press to ensure concentric drilling. Would tint the epoxy or use wood dust/epoxy mix. Haven't had time to try on a practice piece.

That said, am nervous about that process working and so am open to ideas-any suggestions welcome.

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Thanks in advance!

[Jim Koepke]

Make the eye before gluing in place. Drill the center of a small dowel and add a contrasting dowel to the center:

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Make this a few inches long and you can cut pieces as you need them.

You could also make them to a different outside shape if so desired.

jtk

[Christopher Charles]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the good ideas. I considered that approach, but the dowels in this case would both need to be about 3/64" set on-center into a dowel about 3/32"! And I don't have a lathe (and definitely not the skill to turn something that small)...

[Mark Rainey]

Looking forward to your progress Chris.

[Phil Mueller]

I think I might try a leather hole punch...I believe they come in a 3/32” size. Then a small drill hole in the center of that. However you solve it, looking forward to seeing the progress.

[Christopher Charles]

I decided to order epoxy and some dyes. Somehow ended up with the fruit colored dye set...black currant and mango (with white) and then black currant for the iris. The epoxy set a little soft (or I was impatient) and the dyes didn't pop or provide as much contrast as I'd like, but this project needs to move.... Here's the eye (click it to make it big)

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and the completed crane:

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And the jewelry box is now in clamps:

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Next will be sawing off the top and fitting trays.

[Larry Frank]

That crane is really well done !

[Jim Koepke]

Very Nice

jtk

[Adam Herman]

did you end up drilling for the eye? my only advice is go to Michaels and get a little googly eye. haha.

would love you see an update on your work.

oh heck, sometimes i don't get to see all the reply's


nice work.

[Christopher Charles]

Thanks gentlemen,

Adam, I did consider a googly eye and in fact the intended recipient would probably enjoy that more than the actual eye!

[Christopher Charles]

Hi all,

The elf had to do some overtime, but the box made it under the tree :) The recipient is very happy, which is the whole point, right?

I cut the top off on the bandsaw (though would have been straightforward to do by hand).

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Despite careful fitting of the hinges and using a drill press for the pilot holes, the alignment of the lid to the top was not quite what I wanted, with the far corners out by 1-2 mm. Thought it might be alright until I had a couple coat of shellac on. Good news is shellac is so forgiving that I could flush and refinish without too much effort.

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The last task was to build and fit some trays. This also took a couple tries as I had them piston fit before finishing and had to plane a couple sides and refinish to account for the shellac and wax. The trays sit proud a bit and serve as a dust lip for the lid.

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And here's the finished top. Glad to have this one off the bench-3 years and 3 shops to complete!

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Best,
Chris

[Mel Fulks]

Looks like I'm movin'up in the line !! I think that even vinyl place mats ..."suitable for framing " would be popular.
Put me down for two dozen.

[Phil Mueller]

Beautiful work, Chris. Don’t feel alone. Seems every time after I fit hinges the sides need a little scraping to even them out. It really turned out well.

[ken hatch]

Chris,

Nice, sometimes I wish I had the skill and patience to do that good of work but I kid myself. I'd find a way to add a wedged tenon or two :p.

ken

[Christopher Charles]

Thanks gentlemen. Ken, the amazing thing about the marquetry is that it is pretty straightforward once one gets started. And good for small project that might fit in a motorhome :)

Best,
Chris

[michael langman]

Really nice box Chris. Your wife must be delighted, I know I am.

[Christopher Charles]

Thanks Michael, she is pleased and that was the main idea ;)

Best,
Chris