My Dad died when I was 12. Recently I have been given a bunch of photos of him at work and his first tool of the trade that appears in some of his early pics.
Dad was a jockey. In fact, he was the first licensed jockey from South Carolina according to an old clipping.
The tool I have is his first whip. Still with a bit of the string he tied to it to loop over his wrist so it would not be dropped.
I have 8x10 photos of him winning races at the Myrtle Beach SC racetrack just after WW II when he was 14 or so.
I also have some like the attached.
What I want to do is make a case to seal the whip in and laser engrave an early and a late pic above that along with some other info.
I want this to be really nice. Nice enough to continue to pass down for many generations.
But I am new at woodworking and don't know what woods would be suitable both to show the whips leather and the engraving I want done.
Any advice?
This is a late pic.