BOXES
CONSTRUCTIVITY makes a variety of custom wood boxes:
Needlepoint-covered Pen Box
This box is for the owner's pen collection. His wife made the needlepoint and CONSTRUCTIVITY built the box out of really old quarter-sawn oak from a salvaged barn beam, with dovetail corner joinery. Tung oil and paste wax give a durable and beautiful finish that will develop a deep patina over time. A felt lining protects the pens and provides color.
(Click on picture thumbnails to see a larger version)
This box is also for pens, with a needlepoint insert, and is made from mahogany with a stain, varnish, and wax finish. It also has dovetail corner joinery.
Game Boxes
This is a game called Quarto that is quite challenging. The box is made from really old oak from a salvaged barn beam, with dovetail corner joinery. The top board is made from squares of walnut and hickory, to give the light and dark areas, with an oak edge. The 16 different pieces (size, shape, color, hole) are made from walnut and oak. Hand-rubbed tung oil and paste wax give a durable and beautiful finish that will develop a deep patina over time.
Here are some more Quarto boxes. The left one is made from mahogany (one board, so that the grain wraps around it) with corner inserts of black walnut. The playing field is made from maple and purpleheart woods. The middle one is teak with maple corner inserts, and the top is made from end-grain black walnut and hickory. The right one is made from quarter-sawn white oak with black walnut and mahogany corner inserts, and the top is also maple and purpleheart.
Here are some pictures of each one, and with the light and dark playing pieces. The mahogany box has ash and mahogany pieces. The teak box has ash and cherry pieces. The oak box has maple and cherry pieces.
This is a backgammon game. CONSTRUCTIVITY built the box to fit a needlepoint piece of the backgammon playing field, and made playing pieces that fit in a removable box in the middle. The wood is mahogany with a natural wax finish. The images in the needlepoint are Nantucket lighthouses!
Hardwood Boxes
These boxes are made from a variety of hardwoods with a variety of corner inserts to provide both structural rigidity and attractive detail. Woods used include American walnut, Brazilian walnut, quartersawn oak, Houston ash (retrieved from a tree cut down to make way for a new house!), maple, and Honduran mahogany. Each box contains a mix of these woods in the box, top, and corner inserts, which provides an interesting mix of light and dark colors, patina, and grains. These are ideal for jewelry, desk stuff, pocket items, and random junk that needs disguising. Each box is finished with hand-rubbed wax to provide a lustrous and durable finish that will improve with age.
Here is a little folding box that just holds an iPod or a deck of cards. It is made from a small piece of quarter-sawn white oak, stained with a dark stain, and waxed to give a nice mellow finish.
Plain Boxes
CONSTRUCTIVITY has developed a technique to make beautiful wood boxes out of hardwood plywood. These are some examples using oak, maple, and birch plywood, stained in different colors and finished with hand-rubbed paste wax. The grain shows really well. Felt linings of different colors provide protection for contents. These boxes make excellent gifts for new babies (a memory box) and anyone else needing a bit of storage for their treasures on the desk or dresser or table.
