Fig. 66. Console or Bracket.
Boxes. These have formed in all ages favourite subjects for decoration. They vary from the smallest casket to the chest. A box with the lid forms five panels, or, seen from any point, three. In Italy, of old, they were often carved without and within. Boxes may be made by simply gluing, nailing, or screwing together, but they may be so dovetailed by an expert workman that the juncture is quite imperceptible. Vide “Forty Lessons in Carpentry Practice,” by C. F. Mitchell. Cassell and Co. It is a feat in cabinet-making to do this perfectly, and boxes thus joined are very expensive. The appearance of boxes is much improved by the addition of moulding-strips, bases, and projecting ornaments. The student is advised to carve or buy a few bosses, such as heads of animals or faces, and rosettes, and try the experiment of fitting them to a box or carving them on one, Fig. [67].
Fig. 67.
Caskets for Cigars. This applies also to receptacles into which glasses for flowers may be put. Take a cylinder of wood, turned, or made up like a barrel, and fit a base to it, and a lid. They may be made of very large joints of bamboo, which may also be beautifully carved, and partly coloured in the lines, as is common in China. It is best for turned cylinders and bamboo to have them surrounded with metal rings to prevent their splitting. They may also be made square, that is, as boxes.
Fig. 68. Tray for Cigar Ashes.