Fine old Cuban

Mahogany that is. An odd shaped scrap broke from the end of a big plank where a bark inclusion had weakened the connection. I need wood for a entry to the rapidly approaching box competition at Northwest Fine Woodworking, a great Seattle gallery. This material is famous for its good working qualities...so it's off to the races.

It's hard to see but a big knot makes much of the scrap unusable. On the other hand, when I opened up the plank there were nice pin knots next to the bad knot.

There they are behind the corner I just finishing sawing.

I also decided to taper and curve the corners of the box. However, given the schedule I will refrain from doing that to the inner shoulder of the dovetails, which would add many hours of work as it did to this box:

Starting to look like a box

Here's the top, some bigleaf maple burl left form a box for my big sis Colleen. And more pin knots, why not! I'll blend them somehow.