Heart-Shaped Musical Ring Box - Completed

and finally the reveal!!!

The project: a custom jewelry box to present a custom wedding ring!

Turned and carved out of Musical Grade Fiddleback Maple, hand rubbed with a white pearlesence, mechanically designed and created by me, and hand painted blue (interior) with a custom made glass post to hold the ring.  The Zip a Dee Do Dah music you are hearing in the beginning is the actual unaltered live sound.

Custom design and custom made!

Learn more about the process here: http://barefootwoodworker.blogspot.com/search/label/heart-shaped%20music%20box

Catching up with the Heart Shaped Box

Well, as this was a surprise..we've been careful to keep much of it off of the internet.

The piece is now complete and has been picked up.  So it's time to share!

So I'll go ahead and start adding the pictures now so everyone can see some of the process that went into this amazing piece.

The cylinders were turned on the lathe into heart shapes and then split back open.  Then they were first roughly carved out to remove more material before being carved smooth by hand.

The base of this is where all the mechanical magic happened. Lots of work went into that very small space. ..and I won't be showing all of that publicly. But you can see it getting dry rubbed with a pearlescent powder before it gets a finish.   More to follow!

 

Update on the Heart Shaped Music Box

Remember that really great project we are working on: Heart Shaped Music Box ...
Well I've been plugging away on it and finally have some time to give a small update here.

After working on getting the shape on the lathe with tools, there's a need to get it nice and smooth.  The easiest way it to leave it on the lathe and use sandpaper.

I'll tell you though, that sandpaper gets pretty hot in your hands.  So it's a lot faster sanding this way, but it means you have to stop and blow on your fingers a lot!    You may also notice I was able to make another smaller heart at the base of the larger one.  It just seemed like it was worth a shot instead of losing so much of that beautiful figured maple.  Of the 4 cylinders I was able to make 3 small hearts - the forth having shattered.



Here it is split. 

You'll see the paper that was put between makes a nice clean place for the glue to split back open without losing any of the wood.  And we are starting to see that heart shape.  

Fine motor skills

Somehow all of this is going to become a Heart Shaped Music Box.
My wheels and gears are still turning on how exactly to make this happen.

The Heart-Shaped Music Box continues

Remember the heart-shaped music box I've been working on?  We'll I've made some great progress and felt I'd share some updates and  photos.

Last time you saw the pieces they were just 4 glued up blocks.  4 because it's best to makes extras when you know there will be delicate steps along the way.

The next step was to cut down the corners of the blocks.  There are two important reasons for this.  For one, the next step was putting these pieces on the lathe to make them round cylinders, and square on a lathe is unstable. Getting it closer to round means less uneven cutting with the lathe tools.

The second reason, look how much material I can salvage from this...

I'm not sure what I'll use it for but, as I mentioned in a previous post, I try to use as much as possible.  

From there the four blocks finally make it to the lathe for the first time.  The goal at first is just to make them actual cylinders.  Just rounded enough to make the process of carving hearts out of them a little easier.

Musical Grade Fiddleback Maple for a Music Box

A board with this kind of figuring is a rare piece.  You can either pay a lot of money for it or search through piles of lumber and hope to get lucky.

I found this beautiful piece a while back . . and I keep it for special uses only.  But a project like that great Heart-Shaped Wedding Ring Music box is perfect to show this off.


Painfully, I had to cut into it.

A Woodworking Tip:  When you're working on a piece that you are going to turn as a whole, but that will be in two pieces again when done (as with a heart that will open in half), glue two blocks together with a piece of paper in-between.




This will let you turn them together so they match up, but will also let you separate them easier on that seam after they've been shaped on the lathe.  If you don't have paper/ cardboard in the middle, the glue will seep into each half and it will be difficult to separate them in a straight line down the middle.  This way you are mostly having to take away paper when you are separating them again.

Warning: When gluing together this way, if a tool grabs onto that seam it can tear it off of the lathe sending wooden blocks flying.  Turn cautiously with light cuts.




It's such a special project, even my glue bear is all dressed up!

You'll see I cut enough to make 4 of the heart portion of this box.  This allows me some room for difficulties in turning or hollowing the piece out.  Things happen and you don't want to have to start over.   So instead I'll bring each one up to the same level together and hope to have 4 when I'm done.

An Uplifting Project

I'm starting a very interesting custom job.  The project: a custom box to present a custom wedding ring!

What the groom wants is for it to be a way to keep the ring safe from prying eyes before the big day, and a way to show it to his bride for the first time during the ceremony.  And I'm going to do my best to share some of the steps along the way.

I'll start with a very simple sketch that I created for the bid.  I said it was simple.   The concept, however, is a little more complex. I will be creating a heart shaped box that will raise off of the very short cylinder base (kind of the shape of a hockey puck).  Once the heart reaches the top of it's journey it will open into two parts to reveal the inner post that will be holding the custom wedding ring.

Oh and did I mention he's decided he'd like it to raise up on it's own and play music?   And, remember, it's got to be used to hide the ring until the big day, so somehow it must be kept from just anyone being able to open it.

Stay tuned to see this sketch become a beautiful piece!