Hummingbird Inlayed Jewelrybox

I've been practicing lately with double bevel marquetry because like many woodworking techniques you need to work on it to have any kind of success with it. One of my favorite subjects to work on is hummingbirds, they are very colorful and have an interesting shape. This image you see at the left is one I made for this jewelry box, its set into a nice piece of Walnut veneer that I cut. I used Mahagony, Maple, Wenge, Lignum Vitae, Cherry, and Zebrawood. I cut some of the Mahagony along the endgrain to get the figure that I used in the flower.

After all the marquetry was complete I flattened it with a hand scraper and then applied a few coats of Watco Danish oil to bring out the grain of the different woods. I glued the veneer onto a substrate of 1/4 inch Baltic Birch plywood.

The box is made out of Bolivian Rosewood milled to 1/2 inch thick and simply mitered with a few 23 guage pins to reinforce the corners. After sanding I cut the top off on the tablesaw leaving a very thin piece of wood to be removed with a handsaw. I cleaned up the remaining wood with a block plane and some sanding. I then went on to route in the hinges and attach them. A few coats of Danish oil and some dark wax finished off the outside of the box.

Inside the box I used a wine colored flocking to cover the plywood inside the top and bottom of the box, leaving the sides uncovered. I've made a few little boxes but they are not my strong suit, the tollerances are much higher and any little defect shows right up, but this was a gift and I think it turned out great.

"The child is in me still...and sometimes not so still." ~Mr. Rogers