Small Teak box with Tavertin

[Kent Parker]

The latest in a series of box making exercises.

Teak is the primary wood. The "branch" is Mexican Rosewood. Bottom of the tray is Port Orford Cedar.
White stones are Travertine and the little black dots are Obsidian. The Travertine has some very distinct grain pattern that unfortunatly does not show well in these amateur photos. The top of the box is laminated over a mold from four thin pieces to get the curvature. The Travertine petals are slightly curved on their underside depending on their position.

The Travertine and obsidian pieces are hand cut from big chunky rocks, first into ~ 3/16" slabs then into more bite sized pieces. They are hand ground to shape on two different water cooled diamond grinding wheels, then hand sanded, the polished. Obisidian dots are just under 1/4" diameter for perspective.


These photos show only one coat of oil. After multiple coats of oil followed by wax it should have a bit more of a luster.

Thanks for looking !

KP

[Ted Calver]

Kent,
Lovely design and execution! Can you give us rough dimensions? Are the stone pieces set in silicone or some other kind of glue. I really like it!!

[John Keeton]

The design work on this piece is just striking!! Very clean, balanced, and flawless execution. I really like the combination of materials, as well.

Great job, and a unique piece!!

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Very nice. I really like the design for the top of the box.

[John Thompson]

Unique and outstanding design.. a beautiful piece!

[Jim Tobias]

Beautiful piece! Unique design (especially top) and expertly executed. I like this one very much.

jim

[Mark Valsi]

OUTSTANDING in all aspects !!

great job, and I like the design a lot, and the interior tray !!

[glenn bradley]

That is a beautiful box. I like everything about it. The material choice, artistic style, the stance . . . everything. Very well done.

[Kent Parker]

Ted,

The box is ruffly 12" x 4". I placed a cork in the second photo for size comparision. Each stone piece has been set into the box lid. During stone placement I will glue each stone in place with Duco cement and then trace around each one with a #11 blade x-acto knife. I cut just deep enough so that I can later fill the line with chalk to visually highlite it (so I can see it).

Using a razor blade, I slide it under each stone for removal from the lid, then using 1/32" and 1/8" router bits in a Dremel tool I route out to a depth of about 1/32". The Dremel motor is held in a cool little router base I bought from Stewart-MacDonald. Really great for small detail work.

The stones are then glued in place with cyanoacrylate glue. I've been using Hot Stuff "Super -T" as it gives me about a minute of positioning time before it kicks off.

Thanks for all the nice comments!

Cheers,

Kent

[Ted Calver]

Kent...many thanks for the information. I've been wanting to inlay some glass into wood projects and was searching for the best adhesive.

[Jeff Hallam]

A really fantastic piece of work. As others have said, perfectly executed. The design looks delicate, but well built at the same time.

[Joshua Layne]

wow.
stunning work and excellent use of mixed media.

thanks for sharing,
Josh