Pet's urn

[David Ragan]

Our pet died in April.....since then, I been working on this urn. That's a 4" square to the left.

Bubbles was 17. She was cremated.

The urn is QSWO, ebony, walnut burl, and Holly stringing.018.JPG021.jpg




The top is solid burl; the base is veneer on the QSWO.

No fasteners-just hot hide glue.

As it came together, I asked my wife-doesn't it look too masculine? She said-no, it's perfect. So I carried on.

The HHG was great because I messed up the 4 point ebony match on one face (brown streaks in ebony required that). When I realized my error, I simply got my WM $10 iron out and fixed it w a hard roller.

Then, the stringing on one of the corners wasn't so great, so I rehydrated/heated that (Weller variable temp solder iron), and inserted a fix. Excellent.

The finish is super blonde dewaxed shellac flakes from Homestead; 3/4#cut. Borg DNA. Then Renaissance wax.

(Once sealed, the tone of the base burl was not quite dark enough, so I ran some tests w some BORG Zar Chestnut oil-based dye (no pigment) and settled on just a slight darkening. Stained the base burl, more shellac, then a couple coats of wax.)

The lining is white felt over a poster board frame w cotton blanket binding @ the top; Green felt on feet.

And, because she was such a Princess-I will give a picture of inside-the top of her urn.



Thanks to everyone who helped me figure out how to do all this-my first HHG and shellac project. (I'm sold.)

[Ted Calver]

Excellent work David. Condolences on the loss of your kitty.

[Bruce Page]

A lot of love went into that.
Beautiful.

[David Ragan]

Thanks
I miss her a lot
How does this work? We supposed to tell all the mistakes or parts we would do different?

[Jim Becker]

That's a beautiful way to memorialize your pet!

[Bruce Page]

Thanks
I miss her a lot
How does this work? We supposed to tell all the mistakes or parts we would do different?

No, no, no, we keep that to ourselves.

[Andrew Kertesz]

Condolences on the loss of a furry family member, been there, done that and it stinks! Great looking urn, and they are design opportunities not mistakes....

[David Ragan]

I took these few pictures this AM, of stuff in the scrap pile.

It's embarrassing how much ebony veneer I had to process to get 8 nearly perfect triangles for top and bottom-each a 4 point match, so no pictures of all that.

More to the point, these two boxes are the first boxes I have made where Hot hide glue (HHG) was used, and instead of 90* clamps, simply rolled up/secured w masking tape. How simple and easy is that???

The one on the left:

-I decided against the routed lip for the top (would have required a matching rebate in lid-beyond my skill level).
-the rebate along the corners for the ebony inserts is too long (visually).
-The ebony inserts need to be not centered vertically, but more toward the top, slightly, or they will appear to be sinking, heavy, etc. (George Walker has excellent material on design-most of which I can't recall.)
-the corners were router w Whiteside spiral bit, then squared up w chisels.
-About the color testing, no pigment stain was used-this is white oak, and there is already a lot going w a complex design, so I did not want the pores accentuated.


The one on the right:
-it wasn't used because of chip out past the corner rebates, and it was not square.
-The rebate was kept to house a recessed bottom in the final version.

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Next picture:
Originally, the plan was to have the top be Cherry w inlay as shown. The top on the right was figuring out how to have a raised circular top-see below.

For the top on the left, the Cherry:
-After looking @ Steve Latta's great DVD, I had a go @ it.
-I tried and tried, but the radius was just too small I guess because I always got tear out on the convex side where endgrain was. I tried:
-Sharpening my radius cutter w special files
-Cutting only in one direction (not back and forth)
-Holding the cutter straight up/laying it way over while cutting radius

-Finally I cried uncle, and made it out of solid burl.

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Below is my method to get the circular flat area. For this example, the caliper box my hand rests on is about the right height; just rotate the top CCW and then your top will be level when you work down the excess. (There is probably a better way to do it.)

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Thoughts on how to improve?

[Lori Kleinberg]

Sorry for your loss. Very nice urn.

[Yonak Hawkins]

That is so classy, David. Thanks for showing the finished urn at the top.

[Jerry Olexa]

A loving tribute to your beloved pet...

[David Ragan]

Was reminiscing about making Bubbles' urn, looking @ pictures, and must confess that the ebony feet came loose (HHG only) months ago.

So, I went in and secured w epoxy--a lazy way to do it.

I have plans to someday go in and sink solid brass screws from feet into base, and the urn into the base (pre-bore w regular screws, of course).

Guess the HHG doesn't do too well on the fine, oily grain of ebony, even w acetone pre-treatment