I'm still playing with laser cutting veneers and assembling them into stuff. Lately I've been dying a few of these parts, intent currently is to get curly sycamore to look like leafs.
Using TransTint, my first attempt with just soaking left the penetration rather poor. Sanding would scrub away the tinted layer.
With this panel I placed the dye soaking parts into my vacuum pot for a few hours, then removed the vacuum hose and let it rest at atmospheric for a few hours more. Next step was to place the soak dish into a pressure pot at 75 PSI overnight.
Seems to have worked!, 100% or darn close to it.
Anyway, back to the box.
I made the panel and figured it needed a purpose so a basic box was made. Framed panel works as the lid and I fat-fingered the sides with some A&C elements. Interior is red velvet.
Rather large, 4" deep, 13"x12". Box is walnut with jacobs lid lift and pad feet. Ebony "plugs" for the corners to hide the screws. The panel uses walnut for the background. Water lilies are various woods (bloodwood reds are a bit too dark IMO). Finish is satin pre-cat lacquer.
No useful progress photos and the box would not fit into my booth so these photos were shot on the kitchen counter (wrong lighting and other issues). At least the face shot fit into the booth 😬
The design was from a stained glass pattern book. To get the effect of the leading between parts I cut some a bit undersized and used black dye in the veneer glue so it would squeeze into the gaps and show. Mostly worked, but up close you can see where some glue/dye got sucked into the grain. Flower petals are a bunch of separate parts, but they all fit together so tightly they appear as one, should have done the same trick I used for the stems and leaves.
that works pretty darned good for that marquetry panel splint. love the G&G style box. pic's look fine to me. better than most of mine. hey were woodworkers not photographers, right ?
working with my hands is a joy,it gives me a sense of fulfillment,somthing so many seek and so few find.-SAM MALOOF.
Nice job Bruce, you sure are making progress with your laser work. I found the same problem with the dyes, but I don't have a pressure pot. Also it's pretty evident that your photo box really helps the photos.
Wonderful box and marquetry. Dying veneer seems like a lot of work, I just buy dyed veneer but I don't use a lot either. Really like the design of this piece.
TimV, "The understanding eye sees the maker's fingerprints, they are evident in every detail, leave Fingerprints." James Krenov
I've though about buying but I have a ton of smaller veneer sections so I'd like to see if I can use that effectively. I buy (hoard) the low price "mystery box" veneers from veneersupplies and there always is some steel grey maple (dyed) and generally a good selection of heavily fumed woods. From what I understand, the places that do this use a heck of a lot more pressure. Paul (Shipwright) uses fabric dye at hot temperatures but that'll have to wait a while for me to adopt, I only need a tiny amount! 😬
Dave, the vacuum pot was originally bought for Cactus Juice. Next time I try that I'm going to find/make a jar that can hold the parts and minimize the juice requirements
Splinter, beautiful, bot the panel with the marquetry and the box you had to build. Really like the proud finger joints with the ebony plugs, adds a very nice style. Well done.
