My daughter Sydney has an aunt and uncle on her fathers side with a brother who had MS. He passed last week and I was asked to make an urn for his remains. This is what I came up with.
I started by cutting the 5/4 maple block from corner to corner. Next I glued a 3/8 strip to both sides. When it dried I cut from the edge of the walnut strip to a point 3/8 into the maple on the opposite corner, so the saw cut ran through the center line of the other diagonal. On the right side I left the walnut at the top, and on the left the walnut was at the bottom. These could be glued back together. When I did the other diagonal I could use the wedge that was left from the first cut to glue into my piece. First I cut the second diagonal, then re cut from the corner 3/8 in to the center of the first diagonal.
I don't know if my explanation makes sense, but it did work and I checked and rechecked before cutting.
Now when I had finished, I ran them through the drum sander to flush everything up and I used 5/4 so I could split the two of them on the band saw and I had my four panels.
They came over today to pick it up, and were pleased beyond words.