Chest with Maple "Brick" Top

[g_wilson]

Well - my first time here after lurking for ~5 yrs. Made this chest from "firewood" about 13 yrs. ago. I'm am in process of getting the stuff I made thru the years into sketchup. Dimns 27 x 47 x 16 high. Woods mostly scrounged from scrap bins at 2 local "resaw" mills - maple / alder / vertical grain hemlock / yellow cedar / pine. Unfortunately that source dried up some time back - they got chippers. Top is wood mosaic with "bricks" from end grain maple nom. 1 1/2 x 4 x 5/8. Sides are upholstered replaceable panels - fabric matched couches at the time. Purple wood is - surprise - called purpleheart. Experimental grout used was mixed oil-based urethane and fine sanding dust - sorta worked. No fancy joinery. Finished with oil-based urethane - most of the time I use tung oil. Something sensual about rubbing in that oil with bare hands. Would attach model but it grew to ~11mb with textures and whatever Maxwell adds to the file. Stripped away textures and file reduced to 2.7 mb !!! Besides - looks so pretty rendered- love that Maxwell plugin.

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[mitcorb]

Wow. That's mighty nice work. Very intricate and imaginative. Welcome in from the cold.

[davidheim1]

Also take a look at a Fine Woodworking article from the May/June 2009 issue, about how a woodworker in Wyoming handles end-grain pieces. Like you, he has quite some amazing pieces.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=32308

[g_wilson]

@mitcorb said:

Wow. That's mighty nice work. Very intricate and imaginative. Welcome in from the cold.

Why thank you - that chest took awhile but was fun to do. Started using end grain brick on a small oval table as a trial - then did the chest - then a 2' x 4' oval coffee table - same idea - mosaic but with running bond on the bricks. Still have hundreds of those "bricks" in a box. Trimmed good bits from firewood - then burned remainder. I have to confess,I gave up the sanding dust grout and used dark brown silicone after completely finishing,worked quite well,has stood the test of time. Still feel guilty - it's like cheating somehow. Made an apparatus? for drawing geometrically correct ellipse - pretty common old method - no stretchy strings involved.

Looked at Fine Woodworking article - neat idea - whereas I used "scrap" he glues boards up - clever way to do it. Multitasking with a saw - cute. Always nice to see other peoples tricks to get ideas.

[g_wilson]

I forgot to mention - tripped across a little trick for Maxwell. In that chest render -it is sitting on a mirror. To get the mirror effect,in SU,change opacity of material from 100% down to 98%. In Maxwell just leave material character at auto & roughness high- it still gives mirror effect.