Sun Box
I needed to make something simple after the Dodecahedron Blossom Box, and I'd been doing some sketches of a Green Man motif. I thought it'd be good to use that as the lid of a box and to keep as much as possible of the scorched laser-cut edges of the plywood. I'd spent so long removing all of that with the last boxes, I wanted to use that texture with this one.
Along the way of developing the design it moved a bit away from Green Man and more to a Sun Face. Both powerful and positive symbols so I decided to keep it. I was craving sunshine at this point anyway.
The plywood I have is pretty good for laser cutting but sometimes you get a bit that just won't work. Given I wanted to keep the roughness on this box, I was able to use most of the bits. I had a couple of just-in-case spares too anyway.
My first attempt with the veneer didn't work. As with the Winter Leaves Box I was using a box of veneer offcuts and some are better for small pieces than others. So, second time lucky.
The edges of the box were mostly a uniform slightly-charred dark brown. I've since found better settings for the laser cutter that are more reliable and cause less charring, but for this project I was still using the burny burny ones. I used a blowtorch to even out the burning from where the cut hadn't gone through and I'd had to use a scalpel. I used some wood stain on the faces of the plywood that hadn't been cut, so it'd all look even.
Once I'd glued the whole lot together I sealed it with some sanding sealer. No sooty hands required.
And there's the finished box. The hinge is a Procraft 100mm 'Woodtuners Box Hinge'. It's nice! I've got another one so I'm thinking of making another pagan motif box.
