Woodworker's Journal 2001-25-2, страница 37

Commendations

Cherry inlaid with brass and quartersawn oak Id saved for a special project now frame an important family heirloom.

True to form, art director John Kelliher used a computer to assist in his case design. After employing a flatbed scanner to capture each medal and photo, he turned to tamiliar publishing software (Quart XPress ) to position the scans and dividers until he was happy with the layout. He then created a lull-size pattern with our plotter (check with your local print shop) and had a lew extra copies made — future gifts lor his siblings.

"What Medals?..." 1 e-mailed

back to my sister Mary. Soon. I was on the phone with my folks: Mom on one line. Dad on the uther. i knew Dad was in World War II and that he was a radioman (he's still liable to use Morse code on the arm of his chair (hiring a close football game). But he hardly ever talked about the war ... "I just wanted to get on with my life," he explained recently. After all these years, he decided it was time to find a more suitable place for a number of medals, photos and other memorabilia from his war days. I immediately volunteered to create this "more suitable place."

The design process started with my parents. First, they divided that a wall-hung cabinet with a glass door would be the perfect container for the items under consideration. My mom had just the spot for such a cabinet (which helped dictate the final size) and an idea of which species she'd like: "Cherry ... that's kind of reddish, right? That would be nice."

Sorting through all of the stuff my dad sent took the designing process to the next level — deciding how to lay out the inside of tile box. The commendations seemed like such

Woodworker 's Journal April 2001 37

humble documents — no foil stampings, no script, just a blue ribbon in an old manual typewriter, probably banged out somewhere on a beach. I was happy to see that some photos were included. While the medals were the reason for the case, my Dad's face in all of those situations made the medals and commendations seem more personal.

Detail Design

A few issues back, master woodworker Ian Kirby wrote about the design process (Designing with Full-size Mock-ups. October. 2000). There are, he pointed out, four important aspects to litis process: functional design, spatial design, structural design and detail design. The first three asjjects were pretty well covered already, but the "details" still eluded me. Kirby recommended creating full-size mock-ups at this stage, and I realized thai, with a little help from my trusty computer, I could do the same thing. I used my flatbed scanner to scan all the items for

possible inclusion, created a document with a border (representing the back of the cabinet), imported the scans and slowly started moving litem around until a design revealed itself. A commendation referring to "D" Day. July 10, 1943 took center stage, and the medals and photos found their spots from there. With a full-size pattern in hand and the approval of all. I was headed to the shop to start making sawdust.

Building the Case

I made the case from beautiful straight grained cherry. Before I made any cuts. I selected the nicest looking wood for ihe most visible parts. The case sides, top and bottom (pieces 1 and 2). were