I finally put together my first complex woodworking project with moving parts. The result looks gorgeous to me - I have rarely seen 3 woods with such different textures complement each other so well.

My typical process for most projects is to start out, run through the steps mentally and then fill in the details as needed.

Trays

The core components that don’t depend on each other are obviously the trays where the book sits, the hinge mechanism that allows you to open and close the object.

I had 2 cedar planks – 36"x6"x0.75" each. These had to be reshaped to form the two trays. The easiest way is to cut them up, glue them, sand until you get a smooth seamless join and then trim the edges so they all line up:

The next step is to breadcrumb the whole thing. I used purpleheart - a gorgeous exotic wood that is naturally purple.

Breadcrumbs are built using a similar process as the original boards - glue and then sand down.

I drew an abstract peacock and then laser-etched it onto the boards.

Hinge Stand

I decided to go with a blind hinge - i.e. you don’t see bits of the dowel (rod) sticking out. One half of the hinge-stand looks like this:

The other half looks like this:

The only other bits involved were putting the maple bits in and gluing everything together.

And it all came together for a gorgeous piece of furniture to put a nice book on.