As promised, this post is about the making of the lid. There will be one more post to finish this, which will cover the hardware and finishing up of the project.
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| Intarsia is finished. At this point, no bone had yet been stuck on, save for the centre front. |
For the outside of the lid, it was carry on with what was going on for the sides, bone border surrounding intarsia veneers. I did use a different pattern for the top, which was again parts left from another project done some years earlier. This pattern was larger than what is on the sides, but it still worked and looked good. I have seen a couple medieval intarsia pieces with similar designs, so it is also "period correct".
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| After gluing the intarsia |
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| My cutting set-up. This is a saw I made many years ago the glued-on miter cut piece is a guide. |
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| Gluing the string border. |
Even though the previous post shows the bone on the sides, I actually did not start carving the bone until the lid has been veneered as well. Once all the intarsia was finished, I did get to work on the bone, but the stuff for the lid was done once the front and ends of the box was finished. The bone for the back was the very last that was finished and it had a different pattern to it. I will be showing that in my next (and last) post about this box.
I had toyed with the idea of using holly as a substitute for the border of the entire box; I even went so far as cutting up enough strips of it to do the whole project. However, after I carved a bit of the holly and made a comparison with the bone I decided that I definitely liked the bone more, so I stuck with that. For the inside of the lid, however, the holly seemed like a good candidate to save my having to find a bunch more bones, since I had depleted the entire stock at the pet shop.
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| The plates ready for application |
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| The nails are both functional and decorative |
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| Close-up detail |
Even if the holly was not as good for the carving, it was fine for the less complicated inside that I wanted to use. Somewhere I once saw a medieval box that was covered in plates of bone, nailed on with lots of gold pins in a geometric pattern. The memory of this was my inspiration for doing the inside lining of the lid. My pattern for the nails was mainly dictated by the size and shape of the plates of holly. Before applying them, I used wood bleach to bleach them whiter than their natural colour, even though it is already fairly white. With the application of the bleach, the colour is as bright as the bone.
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| A lucky find at a fabric shop. |
I had no idea what I would do for the inside of the box, In the back of my mind, as I worked, were rather abstract ideas of block printed textile patterns or some white fabric painted to look like damask. One day I was in a fabric shop and saw a pattern that I realised would work for my project - except the only colour it was available in, was blue and white. I realised, however, that I could probably dye it and make a nicer colour, so I bought a strip of it, put some dye in a jar added the fabric, shook it up for a while, and then removed it. Once it was dry, it was perfect.
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| Dying the fabric. and the way it looked when still wet |
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| The finished interior |
Another nice thing about this piece of cloth, though I did not know it at the time of purchase, was that the pattern was perfect to fit the box. the sides were one square high, the width was two. and the length was three, One cannot get much more "lucky" than that.
To apply the fabric, I used a wheat glue, which is made by cooking a bit of flour and water, with a pinch of salt to prevent moulding before it dries.
