Rosewood box

[gjbivin]

I just finished my daughter Angela's present for her 18th birthday on Saturday (July 22); a rosewood box very loosely based on the one described in The DaVinci Code. She's going to college this fall, and I thought she needed a place for letters and other personal things relatively safe from any prying dorm mates.

It was my first experience with inlays that are more than just a strip of wood in a groove. I used an inlay guide bushing set I got at Woodcraft, and I'm very satisfied with the result (beginner's luck?).

The box is 11-1/4" x 7" x 4-1/4". The sides are rosewood, the top is maple with bloodwood inlays for the "five-petal rose" pattern and a circle of walnut for the center. The corner splines are walnut also, to tie in with the top.

The bloodwood "petals" are all actually more or less the same shade; the grain at various angles plays tricks with the light.

I finished it with two coats of 1:1:1 varnish/BLO/mineral spirits mixture, topped off with three coats of varnish thinned 1:1 with mineral spirits. As you can see from the picture, the rosewood really "caught fire" when finished.

[drumpriest]

Very nice, well done. I like the inlays.

[Popeye]

Simply beautiful. Pat

[bmyers]

I'm sure she will love it! WTG Dad!




Bill

[Pappy]

Fantastic, Gary!

[Ken Weaver]

Nice job Gary - she'll love it!

[Ken Massingale]

Beautiful work, Gary. Those are excellent inlays.
ken

[mater]

It is beautiful. A gift to be cherished.

[lrogers]

That is excellent work. She is a very lucky young lady.

[charliex]

Thats too nice to account for luck Gary. That is a result of craftsmanship.

[Luckbox]

Very nice, The inlays are great

[ScottGolden]

Came out great!!

You got to be joshing about it being your first time.

[boblon]

Very nice work. I like making boxes and I like that one.

BobL.

[scmhogg]

Gary,

Very well done. I like your wood combinations.

Where did you get the pattern for the inlay.

Steve

[gjbivin]

You got to be joshing about it being your first time.

I had done some simple inlays involving straight strips in dadoes, but nothing involving a pattern. I did a lot of Googling and reading on the subject, then took it slow and double-checked each step along the way. I still made a couple of mistakes, but nothing that couldn't be corrected/covered up.

Where did you get the pattern for the inlay.

I drew the pattern for one petal using CorelDraw, then pasted a printout on a piece of 1/4" ply and cut it out. Then I used that as a master to cut the template in another piece of 1/4" ply, using the inlay guide bushing on my router without the collar.

I just did one template hole, although in retrospect it may have been easier to cut all five in the complete pattern. As it was, I carefully marked up the lid, and repositioned the template to cut the sockets for each of the five petals.

I used the same template to cut the bloodwood inserts, after removing the collar on the guide bushing. The inserts needed some careful sanding to fit, but as usual in woodworking, too large is better than too small.

The center circle was just done with a 1/2" forsner bit, and a plug cutter for the walnut insert.