Jewelry Box Construction

I use two decorative techniques to make my jewelry boxes. Both involve the lamination of solid wood into patterned blocks which are then resawn for use. If the exposed patterned surface is end grain, then the panels are cut at about 1/4" thickness, and used in the jewelry box as solid panels which are set into grooves, but not glued in place. For the inlay banding jewelry boxes, the surface of the pattern blocks are face grain, and the inlay banding is cut at about 1/16" thickness, and glued to a composite substrate, or possibly a thicker piece of solid wood. Neither of these is properly an example of either inlay or marquetry, although in the case of the bandings the distinction between what I do and marquetry is somewhat subtle. But since the inlay bandings I make are sawn from solid wood thick enough to sand clean they don't suffer from the problems that effect marquetry, assembled from commercial veneers sliced only 1/40" thick. These problems occur because the tears and defects that are inevitable in the production of veneer can not be sanded out of such thin material, irregularities that might take a full year to become visible. Also, since I glue the blocks together before the pieces are sliced, with both of these techniques my jewelry boxes' decorated surfaces achieve tight, gap-free seams, tighter than even the most carefully laid marquetry could ever be, since those pieces aren't glued to each other, only to the substrate. I don't mean to disparage marquetry, and I think the beauty of my jewelry boxes speaks for itself, but if you're comparing my work to things like cheap imported Italian boxes, it's helpful to know that what I do not only looks different, it is different.