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This is a graduation present for my son who gets his PhD next week. Wanted a keepsake that would have some meaning. He loves books, so made this box to be a book. His sister (degrees in Art) will make a custom book of his dissertation to go inside.

Box is made out of cherry, pear, and walnut. The cherry is the stripe on the cover with the pear being the majority of top/bottom/edges with the walnut for the spine. The pear was cut from logs I had gotten from a friend's pear tree that blew down in a storm a couple years ago. One cover is a friction fit lid. Could not figure out hinges that would not mess up the illusion. For as often as it will be opened, friction fit should be fine. Finish is just a wipe on from General Finishes.

This project let me use skills not yet employed by me in the past. Resawing on my bandsaw to get the pieces of pear and cherry. Planing them down to such thin thicknesses. Figuring how to shape the spine with tools at hand. Then carving out the page edge which is concaved. For that, I employed the typical "make cove molding on table saw" technique. Never tried it before. Practiced on scrap and was successful on first try.

I didn't take picts of several of the "boo-boos", but they are lessons learned and won't happen in next project.

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Great keepsake. Very special way to store a copy of his dissertation.
 

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Clean and precise work. Wood looks nice too.
 

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Very nice, great thoughtful gift. It will surely be a treasured piece
 

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Very nice work, very clean. I've made several of these but instead of a lid, I make them as sleeves. They stand up like a book. When they're taken from the shelf, the book is accessed by the open side of the box opposite the spine. It's fun to use book-matched panels on the "cover" and highly figured wood on the spine, which shows when the box is on a shelf.
 

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nice. I love the idea that its a book for a book :)
 
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