Ask any kid. Sculpting with clay is fun. Playing with Silly Putty is even more fun. If you let it sit on an edge, it would ooze and flow over time. Sculpting with wood is a lot harder. You can’t just push the wood around like clay to change the shape. You can’t just let it ooze over the edge. But maybe you can make the wood look like you just formed it like clay. Maybe you could make the wood look like it was melting. This is what I have tried to accomplish in my latest experiment with hinged-lid band saw boxes.
The light rectangular box is made out of spalted maple from my yard. The darker, squarer shaped box is made of canary wood. Each is cut from a solid piece of wood using band saw box techniques. Each uses small barrel hinges for the lid, so it remains attached.
I took pictures during the entire process of making the canary wood box. I will show them with step-by-step instructions in my next post for anyone who is interested.
That Canary Wood Box looks great! highly stylized in my opinion. Does your flowing technique require certain grain patterns or do you have to always go cross grain with the waves? Having handled the maple one it looks cooler in real life, you can see the oozing effect more clearly and it makes a unique place to lift the lid from. -Dave
ReplyDeleteDave,
ReplyDeleteI had the option of following the grain on the canary wood box instead of crossing it, but it wouldn't have resulted in the uniform wave pattern I was looking for. Notice that on the canary wood box I put the overhang on the left side so it is easier to open for certain left-handed people I know.