Don Rowland, Melba, ACT

Wine Box
Walnut, veneers (various)
490 h x 210 w x 132mm d

Materials
The box has a walnut frame and lid with veneered panels on a 12mm MDF substrate. The veneers on the front of the panels are sycamore, black walnut, walnut burl, vavona burl, myrtle burl, madrone burl, eucalyptus burl and dyed black stringers. The panels have purpleheart veneer on the back to line the interior of the box. The veneers were obtained from two Australian mail-order suppliers and the New South Wales Marquetry Guild. The walnut was from a timber merchant at Queanbeyan.

Method of Construction
I cut the marquetry for the panels on a scroll saw using a 2/0 piercing sawblade and the ‘double bevel’ technique. After gluing and pressing the panels I hand sanded them and trimmed them to size on a router table. I used a bandsaw to cut the wood for the frame and lid from solid timber, then planed the pieces to size by hand. The cutouts in the base and the lid were sawn with the scroll saw and a router was used to make the recesses for the inlays on the front and back of the lid. The frame and panels were fitted together with biscuit joints. The top of the lid has dowel joints.

Glues
Epoxy resin glue (Bote Cote) for the mitres and PVA (Selleys Aquadhere Exterior) for the other joints.

Finish
White shellac (U Beaut) and carnauba wax (Feast Watson).

Concept
The ‘wine box’ is designed to hold two bottles of red wine and is intended to be a decorative piece to stand on a sideboard at a dinner party. The starting point for the design was a picture of a small box from Tutankhamen’s tomb with representations of the pharaoh on the front and back and plumes on the top. This provided the inspiration to make a tall box, with decorative panels and an ornamental lid. I wanted the box to feature marquetry incorporating a number of burl veneers that I had not used before. I think marquetry looks good on vertical surfaces; a tall box provided scope for this while minimising the amount of space the box would occupy on the sideboard. The burl veneers seemed suited to creating a marquetry design based on a fossil ammonite, a coiled shell in which the chambers acquired different colours and patterns in the process of fossilization. I made pencil sketches and computer-based drawings of a fossil ammonite I was given, producing several designs from which I chose two to make in different combinations of the same veneers.

Photos: Don Rowland