Thread: Starburst - segmented box - Northern Silky Oak/Silver Ash - WIP

Well, there seems to be some pretty fine work popping up on the forum lately, so feeling a bit left out I thought I would post a work in process. It's Northern Silky Oak, reclaimed from a 70+ year old cot kindly donated by some friends, so what better way to say thanks (without using all the timber received, make a box. This way the keepsake cot can be handed on and on and on with little space required.

i came up with this idea and it's been on the fly for a while, changing every time I look at it. In essence, it's been a project going since mid June but only really started pushing hard just lately once the other projects had been finished.

the cot
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The slices
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Thought, how can I impress. Idea make a starburst pattern, and as the slices came off the saw, the grain pattern was so unique I alternated the slices for effect

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I then painstakingly glued them together in pairs in a very crudely constructed jug, I call it the Jug as it's Ugly. Anyway, back to the story, I put 2 wedges (all cut at 10deg) back to back, sanded flat then taped, glued and edged the wedges in the jig.
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First 2 at a time, then 2x of the glued 2's so 2 then 4 then 8 if u get my drift.
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Then I had 2 x2 left over to make the 2 halves. So to recap, 36 pieces in total for those not mathematically inclined.
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Now, my 10 deg cuts were probably 10.1 and as such each half came out over 180deg. So with some fine tuning, every finger, toe, arm, leg and anything else I could cross, I surrendered the piece to the table saw god to marry them up.
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And yes he was smiling on me that day.
so was the drum sander god as it held together nicely.
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It was at this stage I could now calculate how big the box was going to be, but also taking into account the length of timber needed for the carcass as I had 1 continuous length of a certain dimension. I didn't want to mix and match timbers.
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So piece chosen, I then jointed, thickness, sliced and diced the walls
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Then came the 2nd visit to the table saw altar to slice the finely constructed disc into the final dimensions. Whether it was a-se or class, I'm yet to figure out which but I had done such a good job (blowing sunshine here) with the glue up, I couldn't see the joins properly to mark out correctly. So on a wing and a prayer I closed my eyes, moved my fingers out of the way and chopped it into a rectangle.
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Albeit looking fantastic, I felt it was missing something. And I had some offcuts of some silver ash. So I thinned it down and married them up.
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Then came the tape up to put the silver ash in
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Then the glue up
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The result
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Then came the tape up, glue up and sizing the lid to fit, with a slight rebate underneath added support
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So with the box constructed, the lid inset and all glued up here's the result
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I'm glad I put the ash slither in as it makes the lid really stand out, and if your wondering yes the points do meet beautifully in the middle but about 10mm north of centre, another makers mark!!
so now we're up to putting in the splines, tape up, glue in, clean up and spline cut off with Japanese flush saw and sanding block
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So here's where I'm at, although I have cut the splines off and sanded flush but didn't take a photo so will do later.

C&C most welcome