The Brook Trout

The Brook Trout Box is a handful of things. Firstly, it was an opportunity to try a technique that I have seen a hundred times without knowing what it was, or how it was done. Aniline Dyes - we have all seen them before in guitar making. Those beautiful and unnatural quilted maple guitars are colored using Aniline Dyes. They are a type of synthetic dyes originally produced by accident in the mid 1800s; upon such serendipity of a spontaneous purple, other colors began to be synthesized. The unique selling point of this type of coloring is that its pigment is small, and soaks into the fibers of the wood grain, leaving its structure colored, not masked. The character of the wood grain remains as the focal point of the design decisions, but with the added benefit of being able to precisely hone and dial in an attractive, albeit unnatural, color.

The second thing - this box is a gift to an old friend of mine, who was the first among my circle to become an evangelist for leaving corporate America and devoting oneself to a life pursuing a passion aligned with the natural world. In appreciation of their courage, I began to build a keepsake box inspired by the colorings of the fish they most fondly admire.

The process of making this box is simple construction. Miter joints - which I love because they tell the truth - and dados and grooves for inset panels. The real “artistry” here is material selection. The Brook Trout (the fish), has a cascading coloration, starting with a deep green with blue tones that transition sharply into a vibrant red clay like color that meets a stark dark belly. To me, that called for three separate species of wood made into a single panel. Knowing that I would eventually create a one-off dye batch, I chose Maple with moderate figuring to be the bulk of the construction, Mahogany as the intermediary, and Peruvian Walnut as the dark belly piece.

Glue them up. Plane them flat. Cut your miters.

Once the body is dry fit, it was time to consider the x-axis components - the bottom and the top of the box. I made the decision to complicate this build some by lining the box halfway with more Mahogany such that a smaller tray piece could slide side-to-side in the interior, offering a variety of ways to store special keepsakes. That meant that the bottom of the box had to be Mahogany as well. Easy enough - glue them up. Plane them flat. Cut your dados and grooves to match. Remember this NOTE for later

The top panel posed an aesthetic challenge - do I dye it to match the sides, or leave it a natural Maple? I decided that it would be best to leave the Maple as is. Simple enough. Glue them up. Plane them flat. Cut your dados and grooves.

Then, I changed my mind. The Maple is beautiful - but the design prompt is not to honor the wood, it's to pay homage to the fish. Leaving the Maple plain would be a missed opportunity to be true to the purpose here. Choosing to divert here pushes at the boundaries of my three-authority design philosophy - Material Fidelity, Form and Function, and My Eye. I am choosing ornamentation here, and that can be seen as a direct contradiction to authority one - Material Fidelity. And while perhaps that is true, an opportunity to texture a surface that otherwise would be devoid a maker’s hand could be an opportunity missed. But, more convincingly, texturing a wood surface is a beautiful meditation on the dance between a maker, the tool, and how the grain is willing to be worked. The end result is a fully unique - one of one - never to be replicated - truly bespoke offering. And that, friends, is fully in line with my philosophy.

Simple enough. Chuck up a round bottom bowl bit in your drill press. Set the depth stop. Go to town. Huge mistake.

That kind of bit is not meant to cut the way a drill press is meant to prescribe a cutting edge to a surface. It's far too slow with too much lateral play to do what you think it ought to be able to do. Instead, it grabs, tears, and makes a mess. So, after the second instance of this shocking disagreement between material and tool, I moved that same bit over to the plunge router, set the depth stop, and continued on my way. Each depression is decided by hand and eye; take a little more, leave a little more. It is wholly unique. I continued this way until the entire lid panel was textured, save a small band around the outside left untouched to form a clean line where it met the uprights.

Simple enough. Glue it up.

Finishing becomes its own challenge to overcome. The Aniline dye is dissolved in rubbing alcohol. This offers a faster drying time between applications and less fiber raising. The cost here is in the depth of pigment penetration. So, when it is time to sand, it is easy to strip away all that beautiful color. If you don’t know this ahead of time, you might find yourself disheartened. Remember that NOTE from earlier. Here it is. Do the bulk of your sanding BEFORE assembly and dying. Apply your dyes to a surface that would otherwise be ready for oil. This will save you both time and frustration. I choose to use ‘high grit equivalent’ non-marking pads that are sold in the cleaning and dishwashing aisle of almost every store. I think the equivalence is in the neighborhood of 600 to 800. I use them to buff and burnish the surface between coats of oil - in this case, I chose Teak oil. Teak oil is a blend of Tung Oil, Linseed Oil, accelerators, and UV Protectants. That last bit is the selling point. The UV protectants will help keep the dyes from fading in sunlight. Two applications of this with a buff between. Finally, I use mineral oil and a buffing pad to even it out and give it a soft touch finish. To me, it feels like if glass were made of velvet. And I like that.