Sakura box lid

Instructions

After my recent Charles Rennie Mackintosh box build (also on Shaperhub), I had some offcuts of sycamore. This piece has some significant discoloration on one edge. I looked at it a long time and decided it was vaguely landscapy (I know that's not a real word. so?). I also had pink wood stain to use up so I thought of cherry blossom. The hardest part of the project was drawing the image. I use Inkscape for this but it took two failed attempts on MDF before I got the template right. Cutting it was easy with two unicorn router bits from my favorite bit suppliers, Rennie Tools (if you're a UK Shapista, I recommend them.) The branches got cut first, with a 0.5mm radius or 1mm diameter unicorn bit to a depth of 1mm. I set the plunge speed and cut rate to 200 on Shaper to avoid stressing this very small tipped bit. Being a round tipped bit, it left a rather bark-like texture after pocketing out the branches (best seen in pic 2), If I reuse this pattern, I'd be tempted to just stain the branches black instead of filling in over that texture. The blossoms were cut with a 0.25mm radius or 0.5mm diameter unicorn bit, again to 1mm depth. All these cuts were inside, even though shaper defaulted some objects to guide and some to outside cuts. EVERYTHING IS AN INSIDE CUT although the branches need pocketing out too. I did find I had to lie to Shaper and tell it that the bit was 0.45mm instead of 0.5mm, to get a path around all the flower centres. I sealed the carving with clear epoxy then filled it with black epoxy using a blunt hypodermic needle and syringe to fill the channels from the bottom up. It's time consuming but needs a lot less sanding off afterwards. The antique pink wood stain is water based and I diluted it 10-1 and 20-1 for a light and dark shade. I could probably have gone down to 30-1, but that's hindsight. Tip for designers: I find it helps a lot to include a rectangle the same size as my work piece around these freehand drawings so Shaper doesn't decide on the dimensions itself. It just makes positioning on the grid easier (essentially, doing it in the software instead of on the tool)