Thread: American Gift-Box Purpleheart and tulipwood

And here's the box. Finished with shellac. Darkside methods throughout.

Love the box joints and the detail on the corners of the lid.

Lovely work and that is one lucky niece.

Beautiful, as usual Zenwood.

I show a number of people things made from purpleheart and they always have trouble believing the colour is natural. Love the stuff.

Cheers

That looks great Zenwood . I like the knob . What timber is it and was it hand shaped ?

Peter

Peter: the knob is tulipwood (sp?) and it was entirely hand shaped (rasps, files, sandpaper).

Very nice Zenwood! Love the proportions, and the timber is bizarre ....if that's the natural colour! Never seen any on my bench, what's it like to chisel and plane?

Regards,
Andy

Originally Posted by Andy Mac

Very nice Zenwood! Love the proportions, and the timber is bizarre ....if that's the natural colour! Never seen any on my bench, what's it like to chisel and plane?

Regards,
Andy

That purple is its freshly-planed colour, photographed in bright sunlight. I'm told it goes slightly brownish with age, but always has a purple tinge. It chisels and saws nicely, but is prone to slight tearout with a plane. I may have finished off with a scraper. An HNT Gordon would probably work well.

Very nice Zen, you like gettin the family involved. Like Alex said the details on the lid corners is a nice touch... add some swoopy curves and we'll start callin ya Von Dutch!(the pin stripe king)

Thanks for all the comments.

Harry: Curves are a challenge I'd like to get into. I.e. curved inlays, curves shapes etc. Who's von Dutch?

Beautiful boxes, Zen.

Love the Tulipwood knobs they make a great contrast to the purple. Take long to make??

How's that anvil in the shop, awesome piece of equipment. Great for whacking knees on, if ya not carefull

The space might be tight, but the works cool.

Thanks, Dusty. The knob didn't take long, as it was freeform: just kinda followed the growth rings in the bit of wood. The tricky part of this box was doing the mitre where the bottom finger would go. Easy does it with the darkside chiselling...

The anvil/vice was supplied by my landlord. When I got my LV twin-screw jobbie, I removed the anvil one. (Put it back when we left.)

The boxes look great Zen. I have a few pieces of exotics that I will trying to do the same for the Christmas time frame. I must admit that there is nothing sweeter than sitting in the shop and hand cutting out dovetails and actually feeling the wood.

Later...

Fantastic Zen

Love the score marks on the corner and the knob is great