Jewelry Box

This was the next box to come into being.

Three factors brought this together;

First I had some oak that I had machined from a very old lump that had been sitting around for years and I was always going to make a box with it.

Second I found the heart shape in some burr maple veneer.

Last but not least it was my wife's 40th birthday coming up and she needed another jewelry box because the other one is full...........so she tells me! ;)

The idea then began to form, I was limited in size and shape by the size of the oak I already had but I think the square shape worked very well and is different from most jewelry boxes you see these days.



I still made the error of using boxwood flat lines instead of squares and also learned that you should heed the advice of never using pale French polish that is more than six months old because it will never really go off (I had to re-polish it some time later).



I've read in various places that the open grain nature of oak is not really suitable for French polishing but I have to say that the extra effort is worth it IMO, the grain really does have a lovely glow.

I guess that's all for now, thanks for dropping by :)

CM2011

Veneers and Inlay

Following on from the last box time had soon come around to the next HAS Open exhibition and once again we were to sponsor the best watercolour section.

I had given the prize some thought and have been a fan of Andrew Crawford's work for quite some time and armed with one of his books I decided to stretch myself and make a box with a book-matched veneered lid, decorated edges and quadrant hinges. I'm not suggesting for one moment that my work has got anywhere near the quality of Andrew's work but I was quite pleased with the outcome and certainly the prize was well received and many kind comments were made to me. I did however make a fundamental error in the making of this box in that I used boxwood flat lines for the corners instead of squares. The overall effect looks very similar but squares are the right way to go!

This was the result;





The side are solid iroko and the lid burr maple. I really like to work with iroko, it works and machines beautifully and the pale French polish really makes the yellow streaks in the grain glow. It's a wood I intend to use again for a future project.

So that was one year ago and I have been busy most of this Easter weekend working on this years box. Trying to keep this blog in chronological order means that you won't see this for a little while yet but you can get a sneak preview if you head over to my regular photography blog ;-)

CM2011

Watercolourist's Box

My next post wasn't as quick as I would have liked but I wanted to keep this in chronological order and as you'll see there was a reason it took me so long!

After the first box I was asked if I could make a copy of an antique watercolourist's box but with the modification of an extra drawer to hold tubes of colour, these being more popular than pans these days.

It was an extremely complex project, far more so than I first realised but in the end I got there and learnt a lot along the way. Here's the result of that effort;





Now whether it was a miscommunication on my part I don't know but instead of being sold the box ended up on display at a local art shop. The shop unfortunately closed so some months after delivery I had the box back. After a while of sitting there looking at me I decided that I would re-finish the box because I was never very happy with the French polish and the lid had warped. This was a lesson learned in terms of the lid. I always thought that making things from solid wood was the way to go for quality and veneer was not; however despite making the lid from quarter sawn sections of solid Iroko it still warped to an unacceptable level. So I stripped the box right back to bare wood and set about making a new lid with Iroko edges and burr maple veneered panels. This was the final result finished this week in fact.





Now just by chance I uploaded the original photos to a facebook album of my boxes and long story short this box is now sold and has found a new home. It's going to used as was intended by someone who appreciates it and that makes me happy :)

I learned a lot from making this box, most of all that I really liked making boxes! It seems to sit with me well, it slows you down to a pace that's relaxing, the need to be very accurate working on such a small scale mirrors my love of model making and I have always loved wooden things. The gap between this box being made and re-finished was quite long and there were other boxes inbetween and they will be the subject of the next few posts.

CM2011

How it all Began

I thought I would start a new blog around my growing hobby of box making alongside my regular photography blog

My day job is brushmaking which is a unusual profession to say the least and in spring 2009 I was asked to sponsor the Best Watercolour painting in the annual open exhibition of the Hertford Art Society the prize being a very large artist's brush made in a traditional fashion. So I got to thinking how best to present this prize and with a love of wooden things already a box seemed the obvious choice and this was the result.





Made from one solid piece and I guess looking back it was a little crude but it was well recieved at the time and had a very tactile feel to it. Oh and those magnets were just a little too strong so you had to watch your fingers!

Since then my work has become more refined, in the coming weeks I shall bring this up to date with some of my other projects thus far and then post new work as it comes along.

CM2011