(In the) Court of the Crimson King #2: Lets get this party started

First the wood

Top is the Sycamore for the 1st shell, drum sanded to 2.5mm thick. Right is the Padauk. As is usual I source my solid timber from turning blanks (I can’t afford large pieces, especially ebony) this does limit the size of box I generally make. What I do is book match, doubling the width available, in this case to 100mm. on the left are the veneers. The black is ready supplied dyed Birch at 0.5mm thick. To match this I cut (again from turning blanks), Purpleheart and Pau Amarello (Yellowheart) and sanded to 0.5mm to match. There is some Birch ply involved and a little Yew but more of them later.

I built my own Drum Sander which is manual feed and so easily allows me to sand down to veneer thickness. When sanding down to 0.5mm in order to protect the fixed bed I use a sheet of hardboard (Masonite). In this case its as well that I did

Right next thing to do is cut and arrange the first layer so

The grain direction is aligned to make it vertical on the box sides, when completed. The top and bottom pieces are tacked onto the main piece using viscous CA (superglue). These joints are cut away, later, in the mitring.

This shows the yellow veneer, of the second layer, in place

and the rest of the cut pieces loosely placed.

and finally glued in position

using PVA. The red inclusions are scrap veneer. I realised that I didn’t have to cover all the area in my main colours, only under the slots (with a little extra just in case) and these red bits fill out some of the gaps. So thats layers one and two done. In the next part I come to grips with layer three!

Be seeing you.

-- Martyn -- Boxologist, Pattern Juggler and Candyman of the visually challenging. http://www.theartofboxes.com