Harlequin Box – FineWoodworking

15 August 2024 Stan

The design of this box is both simple and complex. At the core, it is a plain mitered cube. The bottom of the cube, sitting in dadoes in the sides, is placed higher than normal to create a hidden lower compartment. A small open-topped box, or tray, fits into that compartment from below and is held in place with magnets. It protrudes 1/4 in. or so from the bottom of the cube, which is just enough to create a little pedestal that visually separates the box from the surface it rests on.

The more complex aspect of the piece is the veneer work, particularly the bold geometric marquetry on the outside. The pattern begins with hundreds of small strips, and every component has to be as close to perfectly sized as possible, because any discrepancy across all the small bits would be compounded as the design is assembled.

Making marquetry

Although I could have sawn my own veneer for this project, I chose to use commercially produced dyed veneers because of the purity of their colors. I start the decorative veneer work by making scores of narrow veneer strips. They then get edge-glued into black-and-white bands four strips wide, and from those bands I cut dozens of small triangles. I edge-glue pairs of triangles, and then pairs of pairs, making squares. Finally, to create each marquetry panel, I glue nine squares together in a three-by-three grid.

Several layers of black and white veneer are secured to a piece of MDF with purple tape. — **Sawing perfect strips.** The veneer strips must be flawlessly consistent or the accumulated error will spoil the marquetry pattern. To cut the strips, Sotirov stacks four sheets of dyed veneer (two white, two black) on a piece of 5/8-in. MDF and tapes them in place. Then he screws another piece of MDF on top. He rips strips from the whole package at the table saw; each pass produces four strips of veneer and two MDF waste pieces.

To cut strips of uniform width with ready-to-glue edges, I used my sliding table saw. I cut strips from four sheets of veneer at a time. To immobilize the stacked veneers and achieve tearout-free results, I sandwiched them between two sacrificial pieces of 5/8-in. MDF and screwed the MDF boards together at the ends. You could use the same approach with a crosscut sled and a stop block on a regular table saw.

There is waste involved in this technique compared with cutting with a knife, as the blade’s kerf consumes some veneer with each pass, and every rip also produces two narrow MDF cutoffs that are difficult to repurpose. But I think the excellent results and the time and hassle saved justify the procedure.

Triangulation

Vasko uses purple tape to secure strips of black and white veneer together. — **Strip gluing.** Sotirov begins the marquetry pattern by making a batch of four-strip bands. He stretches tape across the joints on one side, then turns the band over and folds each joint open to apply a thin bead of glue. He removes excess glue with a putty knife, then covers both faces of the band fully with tape and weights it down under a stack of MDF to dry.

When I’d cut all my strips, I edge-glued them into four-strip-wide bands. The next step, cutting small triangles from these black-and-white bands, is perhaps the most exacting part of making the veneer pattern. Perfect triangles are fundamental to getting matching squares later that can be assembled into the overall grid without distortions or misalignments.

Vasko uses a shop made jig that utilizess a toggle clamp to hold down a triangle onto the veneer. This acts as a guide for his chisel. — **Black-and-white building blocks.** To cut the triangles that constitute the basic element of his pattern, Sotirov uses a small, stepped, MDF bench jig with a toggle clamp and a triangular piece of solid wood that serves both as a clamping caul and a chisel guide. He uses a chisel wide enough to cut the full width of the band in one chop and flips the band edge for edge to cut the subsequent triangle.

I made a quick and simple jig that solves most of the problems. It’s just a solid-wood triangle block paired with an MDF base, a fence, and a toggle clamp. The important part is the triangle block, so I took my time to make it as perfect as possible, using a miter saw with a micro-adjustment fence. I cut the veneer using a wide chisel with its back against the triangular guide block.

After cutting each triangle, I flipped the band over before cutting the next; this generates an alternating color scheme. Because the chisel produces a slight bevel on the waste side of each cut, I trimmed off a tiny strip to remove the beveled edge before cutting the next triangle.

Assemblages

Vasko holds two striped triangles against each other along a strip of MDF.

Vasko hold two sections of the parquetry pattern together, showing how to align the opposing patterns.

Next, I started joining all the triangles. I did the work on a small piece of MDF with a low fence, which helps with alignment. After gluing up all the pairs of triangles, and then joining those pairs into squares, I created the nine-square panels for the sides and lid of the box. Working with such small elements demands precision and delicacy. I found a pair of tweezers essential for lifting and positioning the triangles. The type of tape is also important: You want something that has enough holding power but doesn’t leave any residue or tear the veneer fibers when you take it off.

Vaskos uses purple tape to secure each square to another. — **Assembling the squares.** A small scrap of MDF with a low fence is Sotirov’s assembly platform as he tapes and glues first pairs of triangles and then pairs of pairs, which produce the squares at the heart of the marquetry pattern. Individual veneer strips are 3/16 in. wide; each of the nine squares is 1-1/2 in. by 1-1/2 in.

Vasko shows the final pattern he will apply to one of the sides. — **Small squares beget large ones.** Using the same taping, hinging, gluing, and pressing sequence, Sotirov assembles nine small squares into the larger sheets that will decorate the box’s sides and lid.

Veneering the cube

With the panels of veneer ready, I set them aside and made the box parts. The substrate is birch plywood, and the top and bottom edges of the sides and all four edges of the lid got lipped with solid ebony. After gluing that on, I trimmed it flush to the plywood at my router table. The panels, which were still slightly oversize at this point, were now ready to be veneered: geometric motif on the outside faces and black veneer on the inside ones. To press the veneer, I used F-clamps and 3/4-in. MDF cauls covered with clear plastic wrap to resist the glue.

A stack of veneered and edge banded baltic birch sits in a pile. — **Miters and bevels define the main box.** The birch plywood box sides meet in miters at the corners. The sides are beveled on their top edge to receive the lid, which has a corresponding underbevel. The top and bottom edges of the sides are lipped with ebony.

Vasko lays down the patterned veneer into premade baltic birch sides. — **Pressing the panels.** Sotirov glues the marquetry onto all the sides in one pressing. After applying a light coat of glue to the plywood substrate with a notched spreader, he tapes the marquetry panels in position. He uses 3/4-in. MDF cauls faced with packing tape and applies pressure gradually with a series of F-clamps.

With commercial thickness veneer, sanding is usually the best way to prepare marquetry panels for finish. But getting black dust into the pores of the white veneer would have turned the pristine white a dirty gray. So I opted to use a low-angle, bevel-up smoother sharpened just right. I made a planing stop that held the panels at a diagonal while I planed them; this way the grain direction of each little segment was presented at a 45° angle to the plane stroke, instead of having some parallel to it and some perpendicular. The flattening process worked flawlessly. Alternatively, you could use a sharp card scraper.

A low angle plane sits beside black and white shavings. a thin mdf caul holds one of the box sides in place for planing. — **Sand me not.** Concerned that sanding dust from the black veneer would turn the white veneer gray, Sotirov opted to use a razor-sharp, low-angle, bevel-up smoothing plane to prepare the marquetry for finishing. He made a simple bird’s mouth planing stop from a scrap of 1/4-in. MDF. Alternatively, a scraper could be used for the flattening.

Once the marquetry panels were glued on, I applied the black veneer to all the parts of the cube and the tray. I ran the grain vertically on all the vertical surfaces. For the horizontal surfaces, I created an arrangement of triangles meeting in the center, each with its grain flowing toward the centerpoint.

Vasko tapes together four quadrants of black veneer, orienting all the grain pointing inward. — **Black diamonds.** All the horizontal surfaces of the main box and the secret tray that tucks underneath the box sport a diamond pattern of black-dyed veneer with the grain in each quadrant running toward the middle.

Box building

Vasko holds four sides of the box in one hand, showing all the dadoes cut on the inside face. — **Machining after marquetry.** With the veneering of their inside and outside faces complete, the sides get mitered and trimmed to final size, then dadoed for the box bottom.

Vasko puts a drop of CA glue in a mortise that will hold a magnet. — **Mortises for secret magnets.** The bottom of the main box gets magnets on four sides. Secured in small routed pockets with CA glue, the magnets will hold the secret tray in place.

With the veneering finished, I started constructing the box. I mitered the sides, beveled their top edge to receive the lid, and cut the dado for the box bottom. I rabbeted the bottom to make a tongue sized to the dado. I also cut a mortise into each edge of the bottom and glued in the magnets for holding the tray in place.

Vasko folds the box closed, held together with tape and glue in the miter seams. — **Box assembly.** Before glue-up, Sotirov applies dewaxed shellac to the parts, avoiding glue surfaces. He then lines up the sides, marquetry face up, and stretches tape across the joints. After flipping the parts and applying glue to the miters and the dado, he inserts the bottom and folds the sides into a cube.

For assembly, I laid the four box sides outside face up and used a straightedge to align them. Then I taped them tightly together. After flipping them over, I used more tape to mask off about 1/8 in. along the inner edge of the miters to limit glue squeeze out. I used a little brush to spread the glue on one miter per corner. Then I quickly peeled the masking tape from the miters and folded the sides into a cube, capturing the bottom. Even pressure was provided by three strap clamps and MDF cauls that also protected the marquetry from damage.

Two band clamps with MDF cauls hold the box together for glue up. — **Custom cauls.** Four squares of 1/4-in. MDF protect the marquetry while serving as cauls to distribute pressure from three stacked band clamps.

Vasko shows the front of the box and how the beveled lid rests inside. — **Surprises.** Once complete, the box’s marquetry produces a powerful optical effect. And the secret tray protrudes just far enough from the box to create a foot and a shadowline.

When the box was cured, I adjusted the fit of the lid, which rests flush with the sides. It has no handle; the box is sized so your fingers span the lid, and you simply pinch it lightly and lift.

Vasko carefully fits the completed tray inside the box. — **Inverted insertion.** Sotirov sizes the tray’s parts very carefully before assembly to achieve a piston fit in the main box. And he trims the tray gingerly after assembly to perfect the fit.

Next came the tray, which is built the same way as the cube—mitered sides and a bottom in a dado. Since all parts are veneered, it’s tricky to get a piston fit between the tray and the cube, so I postponed building the tray until the main box was complete. Then I could size the sides of the tray from a real measurement.

The very last step was to lightly chamfer all the sharp corners. They are beautiful and crisp but also fragile. I used a small sanding block made of MDF with a fine-grit paper glued on it.