{"id":5123,"date":"2016-10-31T05:04:07","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T09:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/blog\/?p=5123"},"modified":"2021-09-19T18:52:17","modified_gmt":"2021-09-19T22:52:17","slug":"chinese-seal-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bob-easton.com\/blog\/chinese-seal-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Seal Box"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"the<\/a>A thin \"photo<\/a>sliver of red teases from the back edge of the lid, like the sole of a Christian Louboutin shoe.<\/p>\n

Eva, my wife, is a linguist and language fanatic. One of her language partners, who lives near Beijing, bestowed on her an honorary Chinese name. It is the pseudonym of a premier Chinese poet he admires, Yi\u2019an Jushi. A reasonable translation is \u201cAmiable Calm.\u201d He also sent a Chinese “seal,” a stamp that embodies the two characters of the name in a traditional form.<\/p>\n

Something as nice as that Chinese seal deserves a nice box to live in. And of course, it wants to have a traditional black and red Chinese lacquer finish.<\/p>\n

Cherry with mitered dovetails and flip lid,
\n\u201cFrench fitted\u201d interior,
\nDimensions: 6 3\/4 inches (L), 5 1\/4 inches (W), 2 5\/8 inch deep,
\nBottom: 1\/8 inch mahogany,
\nFinish: Red lacquer interior, Black lacquer exterior.<\/p>\n

This box includes a \u201cFrench fitted\u201d interior to hold a seal and dish containing an ink pad.<\/p>\n

The mitered dovetailed corner, as shown in an older post<\/a>, offers the traditional dovetail join, but with miters on the ends which provide a much nicer finished appearance when seen from the top or bottom of the box. The miters also allow the groove for the floor to be routed straight through but also be concealed.<\/p>\n

Unlike my other boxes, there’s no external carving on this box. The only thing that can be considered carving is hollowing out some spaces in an interior block to create the French fitting. By the way, the fabric for the fitting is simple red felt attached with rubber cement adhesive. The porcelain dish is an “upgrade” from the plastic box that originally held the stamp pad.<\/p>\n

Beware! – Lacquer Lessons<\/h2>\n

It’s called “tuition.”<\/p>\n

Finishing this box was an adventure. I really wanted a lacquer finish, and eventually got one. The first challenge was finding actual lacquer. Thanks (mostly) to California regulators, we no longer have true, hard, extremely durable lacquer made of nitrocellulose. There’s a close substitute in the auto industry, but I wasn’t ready to buy auto finish in gallon quantities, and I don’t have a professional spray booth to use it in. I settled for some rattle-can pseudo lacquers meant for model cars. The one trait these pseudo lacquers share with the real stuff is sensitivity to humidity … and New York summers have plenty of that. I was constantly checking weather charts to find afternoons with less than 50% humidity.<\/p>\n

The bigger lessons weren’t about humidity, but…<\/p>\n