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!

 

Winning at the OC Fair Woodworking competition!

As we told you recently, The Barefoot Woodworker (Randy Mason) entered one of the beautiful Manzanita Jewelry Boxes.   Now for those who aren't local and part of the woodworking community, the woodworking competition is actually quite a prestigious one.  They open it up to everyone in the state of California and it has grown to be something that draws some of the best woodworkers to compete.  Barefoot was honored to be juried into the competition this year for his first attempt at an entry.

And we are so excited to report that, this past Thursday, this jewelry box was awarded a 2nd place Industry Award from Woodworker West magazine.

Congratulations to our very own Barefoot Woodworker on his well deserved win at the Orange County Fair.  We loved this jewelry box and we're ecstatic to hear that so many others did too!

A note from the winner himself: "While this compeitition made me very nervous (largest I've ever entered), and the results made me proud, I would say the biggest prize I won was being able to talk with the judges and learn from them their take on my work.  Hopefully next year I'll be able to learn from it and improve upon it. Fingers crossed" - Barefoot

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!

Islands in motion

Try our slideshow maker at Animoto.

Islands - Finished Jewelry Box!

A one of a kind hand-made, heart-shaped jewelry box.  This custom made, large ring box is turned from a Manzanita burl (number 5 on the wood density scale). This is the only piece I make that starts with a chain saw and ends with a high gloss.

The piece was first turned on a lathe. The natural voids have all been hollowed and then lined in pure silver. The voids were then filled with a resin colored to an off white/ pearlescent to achieve the cloud effect.



The entire piece was then hollowed by hand before finishing.



 
A custom made silver heart with 5 Garnets was then inset into the top.

What I'm working on

Well work is moving along this week.

I've got a few trophy jobs in house - and thankfully the rain is holding off so I can get a finish on them.

In the meantime I've finished another cane:

The mesquite, a rich brown wood, runs all the way through the walking stick to ensure stability and strength.

The bloodwood and fiddle back maple serve as a vibrant contrasting accent at the knob.


The pictures just don't do this beautiful item justice. The true colors are deep and rich with a wonderfully polished gleam.

Includes a non-slip rubber tip at the end that has been installed.

It stands a approximately 33inches.

I'm also still working on some of the Heart Shaped jewelry boxes (see finished one here).

Here are two that haven't had the silver started on them, but that have been cut down and turned into a rough shape. Those odd ends are to for putting it on the lathe.






It's hard to imagine that something like that comes from something like this rough manzanita block.

The Heart

Turned from Manzanita burl (number 5 on wood density scale) Natural voids have been hollowed, inlaid in pure silver and filled with a resin colored to off white/pearlescent

If you put 2 small fists together that's just a smidge bigger than this box....& it took a solid 3 weeks worth of work to turn , inlay & carve.....

This particular one was made for a sweet sixteen and the beautiful garnet encrusted pure silver heart was contracted by Jewelry by Geffre and then inset by me.

I have 6 more SLOWLY in process ranging in size from a small granny smith apple to a large red delicious. In my personal opinion - this is my best work to date.