The Boss decreed we don’t have room for any more furniture so I’m reduced to building mostly small accessory/boxes I can sneak in the house when she’s not looking. This is a small walnut box roughly 18” long x 12” high x 10” deep. The main design/build challenge for me was carrying the “double curve” design elements (I believe called a Cupid bow), through the top, drawer fronts, dividers and base. I started laying out a template which was largely a matter of dividing the template proportionally and using circle templates to fit the curves. – sorry no pics.
This thread is really focused on the curved drawer fronts which were shaped out of basswood. If you’ve never carved basswood you should definitely give it a try – cuts like butter!
Once the drawer fronts were shaped, next up was gluing on the “field” Burl veneer. Because of the curved substrate, I used thin commercial, veneer, rather than thicker shop sawn material. I highly recommend using veneer softener and pressing the veneer between newspaper with the heavyweight to get it flat before getting started.
The veneer was cut down the middle and applied is two separate pieces butted together at the low point of the central curve glued with Tite bond, veneer hammer and tape to hold it in place. After the field dried, I used a flexible metal straight image with sandpaper glued to the back to add some grip and Exacto knife to cut out space for the surrounding edge banding.
I used superglue to attach the 1/8” wide ebony banding because the pieces were so small I couldn’t really get them lined up in place any other way. I used a guide block and chisel to miter the outside Elm burl.
Again I used superglue to first attach the medial ends at the central curve and then press the remainder into place. I left this veneer slightly larger than the drawer front so after glue up I could trim to a final fit.