Vito's Humidor

[Ed Sallee]

I made this humidor for Joseph Gannascoli - the actor that played Vito on the Sopranos....

Joseph has his own line of cigars called Cugine and they are distributed by Alec Bradley.....

"Vito" will be in town on Saturday at which point I will hand it over to him.... Most of the details were requested by him.... except for the tray... I came up with that and just did it... He wanted the "R" s on the lid to look like pistols and to be red.... so, I took the pistols one step further and did some traywork....

This thing shines... it must have 25 coats of lacquer.... it was very difficult to get a good picture... I may try again... but, the flash just kept screwing up the pictures....

Laser work courtesy of Jerry Hewett - Smyrna, GA

Finish is about 25 coats of Behlens Stringed Instrument Lacquer.... I needed a lot to fill up the engraving.... which it did... But, there are a couple of dips that didn't fill as they should - as you can see...

After curing for about a week.... I went through the grits today... up to 2000....

And then... I used Harley Davidson's Scratch & Swirl polish and Harley Davidson glaze.....

Cocobolo & Macassar Ebony
10.25" x 8.75" x 4.5"

Thanks for looking....

[Tim Malyszko]

That looks great. There has been a lot of talk about his cigar over at the cigar forums I post on. Great work.

[Jim Pritchett]

Hey ED,
"How ya doin' ?
Beautiful work, beautiful wood. Where did you find all those tiny .45's ?
Don't tell me you made them!

[Ed Sallee]

Hey ED,
"How ya doin' ?
Beautiful work, beautiful wood. Where did you find all those tiny .45's ?
Don't tell me you made them!

lol... no, they're actually laser cut outs for the bottom of the tray... I have all the "cut outs".... sitting on my dresser...

[John Thompson]

Good stuff neighbor.. that laser engraving is turning the trick with just the right stuff!

[John Keeton]

Ed, you have hit the big time!! And just think, I knew you back when you were just an old northern yankee transplanted to the great South - plunkin' out a box every now and then!!

The quality of your work, and the design elements have risen to a much higher level - just excellent work!

[Mike Zilis]

Beautiful work! Making all those perfect miters would give me nightmares!

-Mike

[David Keller NC]

Hey Ed - Since you're making these for sale (and possibly gifts) and will need to take pictures often, you might choose to add a few accesories to your photo kit. Assuming you're working with a point 'n shoot, you might wish to purchase an inexpensive soft-sided shadow box (they cost somewhere between $40 to $125 depending on size and materials) and a couple of color-corrected fluorescent spiral bulbs to go in inexpensive $8 screw-in, clamp-on fixtures from the Borg.

Then you might want to purchase a relatively inexpensive tripod - the expensive ones are primarily for weight-savings, so you can get a relatively heavy one from Slik for about $100.

Doing this allows you to use natural/diffuse source light, which will help greatly on lighting set-ups for your work.

If you're using an SLR, a circular polarizer filter would also be a very useful addition.