Wedding Jewellery Box

I made this as a wedding present for Jarkwoman and Jarkman.

It's a very simple jewellery box, the intention being to have some subtle shaping and detailing to give it character, rather than extravagant shape.

There's a deliberate contrast between the pale timber of the body and the dark lid.

Some inspiration for this box came from a book of Krenov's, showing work by his students. I liked the idea of a scalloped lid.

To add extra detail, I left the pins of the corner dovetails proud and carefully chamfered.

The lid is made of English brown oak, a well-figured and well-coloured timber, without any further treatment. The pieces for the lid were carefully quarter-sawn to show oak's typical ray-flake figure.

The outside of the lid has a shallow curve, cut into deep crosswise scallops. They give an interesting wave pattern to the flake pattern.

There are internal dividers to make a couple of small compartments, with removable padded lids for further storage.

The base is lined with raw linen.

Construction

Materials: English ash, brown oak. Both locally felled.
Finish is blonde shellac on the ash, oil and shellac on the oak.

Overall size, approx 15" x 11"

Apart from initial stock dimensioning, it's nearly all hand-work. The dovetails are hand cut, as are the scallops in the lid. I cut the scallops by marking out pencil lines and clamping a straight batten adjacent to each one. I then used a wooden moulding plane, a simple cove smaller than the scallop. By tilting it by hand and carefully watching the shape develop, I shaped each scallop by eye.