Guitar pick box

[JasonDorie]

This is a small guitar pick box I made for my father. He's played guitar my whole life, but since retiring he's started writing his own songs, playing at folk festivals, and generally having a lot of fun with it. This is modeled after the Gibson he plays when he's performing.

I used VCarve's vector trace to get an initial shape from a picture I found online. The picture was from slightly off-center, so I created a mirror of the vectors and merged them together to make it symmetrical. I used a layer for each set of cuts (top & bottom of the lid, top & bottom of the base, and the two inlays) for a total of six sets of cuts.

It's made of red oak, stained with a couple different Minwax wood stains applied with an airbrush to get the shading I was after, then a very thin coat of Minwax Polyurethane to seal it. All the inside & outside profile cuts were offset to leave an extra 0.01", after which I did a full-depth finishing pass to make sure there were no tool marks.

The inlays are mother of pearl cut from 1x1" and 1x2" blanks, held down with double-sided carpet tape. The inlay outlines and pockets were offset from each other by 0.005", and the fit is perfect. The lid is held in place with recessed magnets.

It turned out better than I expected it would.

[Phil]

Cool

Phil

[COBOB]

Beautiful work.

[jmkissell]

Great gift idea, from an obviously great Son.

[ScottBot]

Oh man. I love that.
That is such a cool idea.

Scott

[mikeacg]

Great job and a great idea! I hope you don't mind if I borrow it for Christmas presents for my picking friends...

[Len-Tikular]

This is a small guitar pick box I made for my father. He's played guitar my whole life, but since retiring he's started writing his own songs, playing at folk festivals, and generally having a lot of fun with it. This is modeled after the Gibson he plays when he's performing.

I used VCarve's vector trace to get an initial shape from a picture I found online. The picture was from slightly off-center, so I created a mirror of the vectors and merged them together to make it symmetrical. I used a layer for each set of cuts (top & bottom of the lid, top & bottom of the base, and the two inlays) for a total of six sets of cuts.

It's made of red oak, stained with a couple different Minwax wood stains applied with an airbrush to get the shading I was after, then a very thin coat of Minwax Polyurethane to seal it. All the inside & outside profile cuts were offset to leave an extra 0.01", after which I did a full-depth finishing pass to make sure there were no tool marks.

The inlays are mother of pearl cut from 1x1" and 1x2" blanks, held down with double-sided carpet tape. The inlay outlines and pockets were offset from each other by 0.005", and the fit is perfect. The lid is held in place with recessed magnets.

It turned out better than I expected it would.

Jason, that's great, I too am singer songwriter of folk music back here in Saddleworth (near Manchester UK) We gotta keep this kind of music alive and kickin.
The pick box is great but with me just learning I wonder if you would share the crv file?
Many thanks

I'll respect your wish to keep it private of course.

[glenn]

great!