A Picture in Wood

The weekend before last I took this picture at a park near my house late in the day when the Dragonflies were having a great time buzzing around and doing what Dragonflies do. This one landed on this leaf long enough for me to get a few snaps of him.

This weekend I printed out a copy of the picture and turned it into an inlay. I used walnut and cherry for the plant. On the dragonfly I used quartersawn mahogany for the darker wings and plainsawn mahogany for the lighter wings in an attempt to give it some depth. The abdomen is zebrawood and the legs and eyes are wenge. The background is curly maple with nice dark streaks in it, and a neat curve from a branch.

After the glue dried I smoothed the inlay with a bevel up smoothing plane followed by a card scraper, I then glued it to a 1/4 inch Baltic plywood substrate. This piece will eventually find its way to the top of a jewelry box, but for now, its just a picture in wood.

All things are difficult before they are easy. - Dr. Thomas Fuller

Dragonfly Inlayed Jewelrybox

This is my second inlaid jewelry box and like the first one it is also a gift. The box is made from one board of Bolivian Rosewood planed to 5/8 inches thick. I cut the miters so that the grain would appear to wrap around the box.

The background for the image is curly maple with an interesting knot feature and some dark streaks. The wings are quartersawn mahogany with ebony tips. The main body is wenge and the tail is zebra wood. The eyes are padauk outlined by ebony and the legs are ebony. The branch is walnut, click on the image and view it larger to get a better idea of the inlay. The inlay is attached to 1/4 inch thick Baltic birch plywood, the bottom is also Baltic birch plywood.

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. One this box I used a couple of 10mm barrel hinges, they worked out better than the hinges I used on the previous one. The box is finished with multiple coats of Danish Oil followed by two coats or paste wax, the inside is top and bottom is covered with wine colored flocking.

This is the first small box that I am completely happy with the way it turned out. As with anything, practice makes better, not perfect, but still better.

What matters is the value we've created in our lives, the people we've made happy & how much we've grown as people. ~D. Ikeda