Menken - Woodworking

Snake pendant

Grenadilla

Bold and loud snake pendant. This tricky beast is made from african blackwood also known as grenadilla (Dalbergia melanoxylon). The wood is extremely hard and usually used in music instruments like clarinets. Unfortunately I had to make two snakes because the first snake broke during carving.

Safe puzzle box

This safe is a puzzle box that can only be opened with a secret trick. The idea for this project came from japanese puzzle boxes called Himitsu Bako. Some parts had to be made from oak, to be able to resist wear and tear from a metal mechanism. The initials and safe markings were designed in Affinity Designer and lasered into the wood.

Puzzle box

Unfortunately I don't know the wood type of the box itself. It's aromatic like pine or cedar. But way too dark for anything recognizable. There is no special joinery for this box. The endgrain is directly glued to the long grain but reinforced with toothpick dowels. The magnets are press fitted into the wood. All finished with boilded linseed oil.

Jewelry Box

A small jewelry box. Box is jointed with European style dovetails. Small trays printed from PLA plastic as inlay containers. The top tray slides nicely from left to right to make all accessible.

Knifestand

A knifestand made from wenge (Millettia laurentii) and ash wood. I really enjoyed the idea to mold a knifestand around two existing knifes. I took images from the knifes to incorporate them into the 3D model.

Cuttingboard

In addition to the knifestand I made a cuttingboard from black locust(Robinia pseudoacacia). The small kite inlay is african blackwood.

Plugs

Grenadilla

This set of earplugs is again made from african blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon) and a brass inlay. The wood is perfect for jewelry due to its dark color and high density. The machining process is slow but very accurate and has minimal tearout. The special part here is the hand cut groove around the spool to perfectly fit to the hole in the earlobe. It should not fit too tight nor should it fall out.

Mjolnir pendant

Wood from the tree of heaven is super porous. It was a real challenge to keep them from clogging up with grenadilla dust.

Rings (of Power?)

Guitar string as metal inlay. All wood stabilized with Cyanoacrylate (CA glue).

This is a specialized screwdriver to loosen the screw on chip breakers. Some wood planes have chip breakers on the blade to prevent tear out in the wood. And especially for vintage planes it is better to use a well fitting screwdriver to not damage the slit in the screw.