A little tea box I made from recycled wood. Most of it is really old cedrela (also called Spanish cedar). It’s a lot like mahogany. The top has an especially nice ribbon figure. The inside is made of lighter wood. I think it’s just younger cedrela. These are from cigar boxes that I took apart. You can still see the brand, “Nederlandsche Munt” in a few places. The corners are small pieces of wenge .Corners are just box joints, nothing fancy. The finish is hand rubbed shellac.
Here’s how I got most of the stock to build this tea box. I took apart a bunch of old cigar boxes that weren’t suitable to use as a whole, for example because one side was cracked or they just weren’t pretty enough.
These five boxes yielded quite a bit of useful wood. It’s all cedrela, but different qualities and thicknesses. Some bits are really nice and chatoyant, others are rather plain. 