Project Information
This project was my first foray into marquetry, and also my first project posted here on LumberJocks. The carcass is made of cherry, mitered at the corners and reinforced with padauk keys. The field of the hibiscus motif on the lid is curly maple, and padauk was used once again on the petals of the inlay. Yellowheart was used for the stamen. I shaded these pieces using hot sand in order to give dimension to the petals and accentuate the overlapping nature of the design. All of these pieces were sawn using a bevel of 5.5 degrees using the double bevel technique.
The whole box is finished with several coats of pure tung oil. I selected this finish for several reasons. First, it will not yellow as the piece ages. Additionally, if using a varnish, It would have been best to coat the piece first in shellac in order to seal the wood and protect the vitality of the colors. Since alcohol is used as the solvent in shellac, and padauk contains alcohol soluble dies, it would have ruined the lid by bleeding the color. I was not comfortable with the dull appearance of a varnish only finish, so I opted for the time tested tung oil.
This project was made as a gift, but I have a critical problem at the moment. The lid, which has a frame smaller than I am used to building, warped heavily, due to building the piece in my un-air conditioned shop here in North Florida. I brought the piece inside for finishing, and the next day found two high corners that yield a maximum gap of about 5 millimeters. Does anyone have any guidance for me in how to correct this problem? Is there anything better than planing the lid once it reaches equilibrium and then repairing the finish? For likely divine reasons, I have built a lot of smaller pieces like this and have never had this sort of problem with wood movement when moving the piece inside.. I also welcome any comments you may have about my design or construction.
The whole box is finished with several coats of pure tung oil. I selected this finish for several reasons. First, it will not yellow as the piece ages. Additionally, if using a varnish, It would have been best to coat the piece first in shellac in order to seal the wood and protect the vitality of the colors. Since alcohol is used as the solvent in shellac, and padauk contains alcohol soluble dies, it would have ruined the lid by bleeding the color. I was not comfortable with the dull appearance of a varnish only finish, so I opted for the time tested tung oil.
This project was made as a gift, but I have a critical problem at the moment. The lid, which has a frame smaller than I am used to building, warped heavily, due to building the piece in my un-air conditioned shop here in North Florida. I brought the piece inside for finishing, and the next day found two high corners that yield a maximum gap of about 5 millimeters. Does anyone have any guidance for me in how to correct this problem? Is there anything better than planing the lid once it reaches equilibrium and then repairing the finish? For likely divine reasons, I have built a lot of smaller pieces like this and have never had this sort of problem with wood movement when moving the piece inside.. I also welcome any comments you may have about my design or construction.