box for a friend

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Oliver Springs, TN
Going to make a jewelry box of sorts for a friends daughter, she's like 9 or 10. They live in the same town where my daughter is going to college and have been a blessing to her and more so me! Got the top panel glued up this morning. It's some spalted maple I milled I think last year maybe. Still haven't decided on what to make the actual box from, kind of leaning toward cherry.

spaltedmapletop.jpg
 
If I may.

Maple, spalted or otherwise leans toward yellow, a cooler color. Cherry leans toward red (a warm color)and gets redder as time goes by. Walnut (can be warm in a classy sort of way, but definitely cooler than cherry in color temperature), on the other hand leans toward yellow, and IMHO, makes a much better pairing with the maple. Or some such nonsense. Like I said, JMHO.
 
That's a gorgeous piece of lumber, and I think cherry (or some other species with some red tones to pick up the pink shades in the top... maybe mahogany?) would be a great choice. Be sure to post some pics of the finished product!


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That's a mighty fine piece of maple, John. It'll sure make a great top panel for a box! As much as I like working with cherry and mahogany, I have to agree with Carol about walnut being a better choice. The spalted maple is the standout piece in this case; the box itself needs to enhance the top, not compete with it. If I were putting a handle on the top, I'd tend toward a piece of walnut with a bit of dark dye to take it down a little.
 
That's a mighty fine piece of maple, John. It'll sure make a great top panel for a box! As much as I like working with cherry and mahogany, I have to agree with Carol about walnut being a better choice...

Gotta disagree here. I use cherry with maple (spalted or otherwise) a lot, and I really like the contrast. They look very good together.
 
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Don't know if this will work im sending it from my phone.

I decided to go with walnut.
 
Decided to chamfer the top so the panel is shown better. I'm also adding splines to reinforce the miters.

What species would you use for the splines?

I'm thinking something dark, maybe darker than the walnut?


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You could still use walnut for the splines, but use end grain, that will give a darker hue when finish is applied. I also think using the same spalted maple would look good also. The box is looking great so far John:)
 
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