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Wanted to practice inlay before I did it on a guitar, this is a jewelry box thingy I'm making for my wife.

David L

that is sweet .

David, DAVID!!!!!!
What are you doing wasting your time making guitars???????
That is beautiful work, and I love cocobolo anyway.

Kevin

Actually as you can probably tell, I haven't pore filled yet. I just finised the inlay and I wanted to rush some pictures up so I just sprayed a coat lacquer sealer and snapped a few quick shots. This box (the 14th one I've built) has been a test specimen for building a guitar. Now that ya'll are probably completely confused I'll try to explain. I wanted to try some of the procedures on this box that I will be using to build a guitar such as inlay, which brings us back to the finish. I usually don't pore fill or use lacquer but I will on this box to practice for the finish on the guitar. I will post some pictures of other boxes that I have made later tonight. BTW, the white strips are Holly.

David L

The holly looks almost like plastic! Its so white! This is a nice box Dave. The thing about building boxes and furniture that scares me are the square corner joints. I worry that I would not get them all tight like you did here. I was just joking about the pore filling btw. THats my goofy nature.

Holly is the whitest wood commercially available. It is harvested in the dead of winter and must be vacuum kiln dried to prevent staining. Although not noticeable in the pictures it has a really cool silking thing going on, different than the silk in spruce, more of a boxy type silk, kinda hard to explain, I'll try to take some pictures of some stock that I have in the shop and see if it comes out. I plan on using some for binding on my next guitar. As far as getting the boxes square, well that can be tricky (and frustrating) and I don't always succeed and have to resort to gap filling with either thin shim wedgie thingys or sawdust, the miters are tricky. Once I decided on a design and started duplicating the process I started learning some tricks (for lack of a better word) and with the help of a couple of simple homemade jigs I was able to build them to a level that is almost acceptable (to me). Everyone else absolutely loves them but I sit there and pick them to pieces, noticing every single flaw no matter how minor. More pics to come.

David L

Here's one of my favorites, quilted maple, claro walnut, bloodwood and holly.

David L

Here's another, this may be my mostest favorite one. It's all bubinga except the black stripe is ebony. The red stripe is heartwood, the yellowish is sapwood and the center of the lid is somewhere in-between where the heartwood transitions to sapwood.

David L

One more, when I said that I've never done inlay before, I lied, forgot about this one, it is a knick-knack tray, ebony, canary wood, the football is claro walnut and maple. This is one of my first woodworking projects, I did the inlay work using only a razor knife and a chisel (PITA), and for the finish, well there is no finish, it is merely highly polished wood. This was a gift for a friend who is a big time Saints fan, Who Dat Baby!

David L

P.S. Where the hell did that cat come from?

You inlaid the cat? Cool! That must have been difficult.