Old Romantic

It was my wife's birthday recently and because she has got most things that she needs, (and quite a few that she doesn't) I decided to make her a trinket box. I cut it out from a piece 20mm thick maple and added a couple of lugs on the back to take the lid.

However, the maple was a bit on the shallow side so I cut out a piece of 6mm mahogany to make it a bit deeper. The bottom, which was cut from a piece of 3mm plywood was then added. As you can see in the photo below I made the box in a rectangular shape to give it clean lines and because of that the lid was easy to cut out. It is made from a hardwood called obeche, which I like because it takes pyrography very well.

In this case, the pyrography that I choose for the lid was a fuchsia, which is one of my wife's favourite flowers. However, it wasn't all plane sailing because I drew it by hand before burning it in with the pyrography and that is when I discovered that I didn't like it. In pyrography terms when that happens it can be an absolute disaster, I did a lot of mutter and almost tossed it in the wheelie, but I managed to retrieve the situation by running the lid over my belt sander. A layer about a sixteenth of an inch was soon removed and I did the pyrography work again.

I was much happier with the second attempt. My wife was pleased when she took the wrapping paper off the box and even happier when she opened the box.

I guess she'd have been even happier if I'd slipped a diamond ring in as well, but you can't have everything.

I think the inside would definitely benefit from a layer of flocking but I ran out of time. Perhaps I will do it one of these days and show it to you again.

Anyway, I've done enough boxes for a bit so I'm going to try my hand at a bit of intarsia work with the scroll saw and pyrography iron. If you haven't come across the term intarsia, don't worry because up until a couple of months ago I hadn't heard of it either. If I've whetted your appetite, please watch out for my next post where all will be revealed