Chiaroscuro by Nick Falzone

There was one last piece to cut before the glue up could happen. Just like there was a separator in the ebony cube, there must be one in the maple section as well. This was made out of another piece of maple in the same manner as the ebony piece albeit on a slightly smaller scale.


Once this was completed, it was time to sand everything up and prepare for the glue-up. The frame went first.


With all of the pieces laid out, it was time for the rest of the glue up. I started with the corners, once again making sure they were as square as possible. After this, I worked my way through, gluing a couple slats at a time, making sure the spaces at the top were even.


Here is the finished maple assembly along with a sneak preview of what is to come later… Aluminium.

Fins

The design for the fins changed and evolved during the process of building the case. Initially they were going to be made out of veneer covered acrylic but in the end, the simplest solution was the best; more solid curly maple. To do this, I had to make a bunch of little strips, and a bunch of perfectly aligned little holes in the ebony.


The next step would be to cut the maple fins to length. The trick here was to make them so they could fit between the ebony frames but without being too loose since they would need to swing freely without having too much of a gap.


The mechanism with which the fins would be able to swivel would be magnets. For this, I would drill holes on both sides of the fin along with a corresponding hole in the ebony. A magnet would be placed in each hole, (this left the fins removable) to ensure I could remove the fins if I needed to (also handy for finishing). Making the holes in the right place was the hardest part here.