I’m in the process of making a jewelry box and want to line it with black velvet. I’ve had a few suggestions on techniques but was wondering if anyone has any tips or suggestions from doing it themselves. I want to use velvet fabric and I have chosen not to use the self ahesive velvet or spray on suede tex from Rockler. I know I’m taking the difficult route but I’m looking for a more quality item when I’m finished.
Thanks
Replies
There was a technique described in FWW some years ago that I thought looked useful. The author cut pieces of light cardboard, shoebox type stuff, and wrapped each piece in velvet so it wrapped around the edges of cardboard and was glued on the back. This assured that any puckering or bleedthrough would be out of sight when the panels were installed. This approach would also make it very easy to put a little padding behind the velvet.
He was using a separate piece for each side. As I remember it, his panels were sized so they were just friction fit, but it wouldn't be hard to put a little dab of hot melt or white glue on the back of each panel.
The only advice I have is to shop carefully for the velvet. In my opinion, if you can see lines in the velvet from the weaving or if the nap feels at all stiff, it's not very good velvet. Unfortunately, I can't tell you where to find the good stuff.
Try ultrasuede!
Jim
You have basically two ways to go with lining a box, once you nix the flocking: glue to the panels or wrap around matboard.
I choose line my boxes with material glued to the panels before i glue them up in the sides. This means the fabric is attached very securely and won't bunch, wrinkle, or ravel, and the edges are hidden in the groove. I switched to my glue-down method because i do at least a couple hundred boxes a year and this way is much faster with fewer parts to handle and cut. I use upholstery velvets bec they are so much sturdier than dress velvets, satins, and brocades, many of which have a stabilized backing. Another advantage is they are all Scotchguarded, which keeps them cleaner.
The other way is to use artist's mat board (not corrugated cardboard or shirtboard) and wrap the material around the piece with about an inch margin. Depending on the thickness of the material, you have to cut the mat board a bit smaller than the area to be lined. Trim the material on the diagonal at each corner so you have only one layer of material to turn under and hot glue. Hot glue will hold the material, but when i used to line boxes like this, i used E-6000 (souped-up GOOP) to fix the panels in place, as heat on the box top would soften the hot glue and let the panel sag.
The advantage to the matboard way is that you can use materials that don't stand up to water (as in water-based glues), of which velvet is one. It will wrinkle terribly if you get it wet with glue, and won't shrink back to size on the board. The disadvantage is that the cut corners can ravel, but if you don't trim the excess material off the bulkiness is quite unattractive. With delicate fabric, you can wait until the end to add it. Don't bother trying contact-type spray adhesive to attach velvet; while it works short-term, it will delaminate from the base in a matter of months.
I use a foam roller to apply white glue to a wood panel, then place it face down on the backside of the fabric. (If wrinkled, iron it through a terry cloth). Trim with either a rotary cutter (best...it won't pull the material), or a sharp single-edged razor blade. It dries very quickly, so you can glue it up in a matter of minutes. A bonus is that the material snuggled into the groove will take up the slack in the dry season, eliminating any shrunken-panel rattle.
Another amazing case of the answer coming before I asked the question.
I've almost completed a pair of prototype keepsake boxes, and had decided to line them with velvet. I've done a couple of google searches online but have been fairly disappointed with the instructions I've found. I thought I'd post a note here when I got closer to the time, probably this weekend... but lo and behold, here's just what I needed.
One of the many reasons I keep coming back to Knots. Thanks -- and not "in advance" this time. :-)
DavidLook, I made a hat -- Where there never was a hat!
If you're sold on velvet, this won't help, but I recently lined three jewelry boxes with black felt and they looked great and were easy to line. I, too, put the fabric on artist's cardboard (not as thick as matte board), but the felt was trimmed with an Exacto knife right at the edges. One problem with the felt, however, is that it tends to "pick" a little and may catch on any sharp edges that stick in it. It's easier to apply than the velvet, I find, but you have to use the glue sparingly or it will show through. I thought about velvet initially and went with the felt because it was easier. Splintie's method for velvet might result in a much better looking end product, though.
My father & I have been building glass top display boxes for firearms collectors for more than 50 years, fitting them to specific guns ..... mostly Colt revolvers. These guns are in and out of the boxes repeatedly at collector shows, and the Suede-Tex flocking has held up remarkably well, for the duration. It stands up to mild cleansers when "degreasing" has been necessary.
My question is: Why did you rule this lining out so quickly? Done correctly it's quite fast and robust, the bonded rayon fibers closely resembling velvet!
John in middle Tennessee
Flocking is seen on so many poorly-made, imported jewelry boxes that it's gotten to be known by the company it keeps, for one thing. I use it on cheaper, lathe-turned pots that would be very hard to line otherwise, but while i agree it can be done well (do you use the pressurized spray can?), it still looks a bit off-the-rack compared to fabric with a good hand to it. I can also detect the scent of the adhesive or paint used to adhere the fibers unless it's aired out for some time.
If anyone is interested in flocking, this place gave excellent service and has a much larger selection of colors than the wood supply stores:
http://www.donjer.com/index.html
I wanted something that has a richer look and also I wanted to put some 1/4" foam rubber under it in some of the drawers. I looked at some boxes with the velvet in them and it is really dressy but, as you see from the comments it comes with it's own set of problems. I'm sure that properly done the Suede tex would be fine in fact I have a gun rack that I did in high school (1956, WOW am I old or what) and it's still holding up with a few worn spots so it's a good choice when used properly.
Thanks for the comments.
I have lined boxes with velvet (bottom only), with and without foam fill and it looks great. I cut a piece of mat board slightly smaller than the inside of the box. Cut the velvet to size (trimming the corners). Spray the back of the mat board with spray adhesive. After a few minutes for the adhesive to become tacky, I wrap the velvet. So far I haven't had any come loose.
Using foam, I follow basically the same procedure. I pull the velvet relatively tight (and straight as it does have a grain) to make the edges smooth and eliminate wrinkles. I used foam where I had a divided tray. The tray dividers are forced down into the foam so that it forms individual "piilows" in each compartment.
I originally started this discussion and now the jewelry box project is complete and the lining came out great thanks to some great information I got on Knots. I did just as SPLINTIE said but I did do a bit of experimenting on mine also. I used the mat for the bottom lining in the drawers which I covered with the velvet after gluing in a layer of ¼” think foam. I adhered the foam to the mat board with spray adhesive, it can’t go anywhere as it is covered with the velvet and therefore captured in place. When I glued the fabric to the mat, I couldn’t glue it to the foam rubber so I wrapped it around the back or bottom of the mat and glued it with about 1” overlap to the bottom of the mat. I used Tacky Glue from JoAnn fabrics to glue my velvet fabric in all cases and it seemed to work great. I can’t vouch for longevity but it seems very secure. I installed that bottoms prior to lining the insides of the drawers and used my trusty hot glue to secure it. I did something a bit different on the sides of the drawers. I resawed some clear pine I had to about .070 thick and used that to wrap the fabric on for the sides. I made the side lining pieces all the same width with the fabric wrapped around both sides and the extra fabric was trimmed on what would be the bottom of the lining when installed. After trimming the extra fabric off with a scissors I made a fixture to clamp the pieces and trimmed them to the exact width on my table saw. I had to trim the pieces to fit my drawer sides, as the drawers were all different heights. You could cut trim them with a razor or whatever but the saw really made a clean edge. It worked great and again used hot glue to install. When I look back at the process I found the lining to be a relatively easy process but a bit time consuming. I used black velvet so the dust and lint very evident but my wife had a lint brush, which worked like a charm to clean up all of the lining parts before installation. I hope this is helpful to someone and I’m ready to start on another box.
I know that I may have created some extra work with my method but it's alway fun to experiement and try differnent new ways of doing things. Good Luck with your projects and have fun.
Stan
Did you line each side piece of pine individually? Before i decided to not do that <G>, i experimented with miters, butt joints, individual lining parts, gluing the matboard (wood in your case) to a single long strip of fabric that acted as a hinge on three corners...all too time-consuming compared to spraying and waxing the inside surface of the box side before assembly. Anyway, i'm interested in how you treated the raw edges on the side pieces, if you please...
I covered both sides with the fabric, cut off the excess material, trimmed them to width as I indicated with a fixture made from a couple of pieces of 3/4 plywood with a couple of 1/4 screws to clamp the strips in between. The end pieces were cut to fit from side to side tight with a slip fit. Then I cut the side pieces so they were a tight fit with the fabric covered ends in place. This is not to difficult as you can measure and cut them close enough. After the first drawer I knew how much of an allowance I needed to make on the length of the side pieces to make a good fit. Then I cut all of them using that measurement. I was using black velvet and the corners are so tight that you can't see any seam. As you will note, all cuts were cut off square. I took the edge of a putty knife and forced any loose threads into the corner although that was not a problem as I made sure that there were no loose threads on the parts prior to installation. Also, as I said I was using black and with the black it virtually impossible to see the corner as it absorbs all of the light and really hides the corner. It actually worked really well and for a big fingered Swede I was pretty happy with my results. I have to thank you for the guideance that got me on the right track and when I do more boxes I'm sure that I will follow the same procedure.
Many thanks,
Stan
A useful padding is skin wadding.It is carded cotton or a man made fibre that has a sprayed
surface of cellulose.This is then folded. You should be able to obtain it from an upholstery
supplier. Ideal for fine work.
Regards Len
One of the other reasons i steer clear of dress velvet, though i agree the look and feel is sumptuous, is for packing. I have to mail a lot of stock and found that stuffing the insides with tissue to keep trays immobile would result in indentations in the velvet. If the owner does it with a heavy bracelet, fine, but it wasn't good for display at a store. There are workarounds for packing, but it's something to be aware of.
Splintie and all, I thought I'd post a quick follow-up: I used the "mat-board wrapped by velvet" technique you described above, and the results were outstanding. It looks like I've been lining boxes for years!
Thanks,
David"The world that was not made is not won by what is done" -- Mundaka Upanishad
Picture?
I'll post a pic soon... my camera and the box have been on opposites sides of the lake for the last couple of weeks, but they'll be reunited later this weekend.
David"The world that was not made is not won by what is done" -- Mundaka Upanishad
OK, Colleen, finally, here are a couple of pics, although they may be completely useless since you can barely see the lining.
Wanting to try out a copper patination technique I'd read about a few years ago, I decided to try my hand at a plain ol' basic box. The one pictured is walnut with ebony keys at the mitered corners -- I made a second out of bloodwood, also with ebony keys. The choice of woods was based on how the copper tops looked after the patination process; I used the walnut with the more turquoise-looking copper and bloodwood with the more olive/rust colored copper piece. I used a maple-leaf pattern on the top, but it's purposely not crisp... the idea was to give the sense of the reamains of fallen leaves, after a rainstorm in autumn. (Oh god, I think I'm getting poetic!)
Unfortunately, my shop was freezing the day I cut and glued the bloodwood box, so it absolutely sucks. I'll be steaming it apart shortly (I used hide glue) and remaking it, but of the two, it will be my favorite, once the construction flaws are corrected.
David"The world that was not made is not won by what is done" -- Mundaka Upanishad
PLEASE! How did you do the patination with the leaves? I'm getting much more interested in mixed media--i ran out of wood colors! I took a glass fusing class a while back and used stained glass for panels, but my work with metal is very limited and mostly welding, a bit of brass insets from time to time. That copper with the leaves knocks me out! Is there a book to recommend? Do you have in-process photos?
Maybe start another thread on it, so others get the benefit.
In winter, i have a salvaged 220V wall heater that i turn upward inside a milk crate. As i clamp each box, i place it across the crate over the heater blowing upward, flip it once during the next glue up, and set it aside to cool off whenthe next box takes its place. My walkout-basement shop never goes below 50*, but that is still way too cold for glue-ups of any sort, IMO, but this works just fine.
I don't know if you've knocked apart keyed miters before to re-glue, but you'll have to glue the keys in as you glue the miters the next time. If you leave them out, the sides can shift ever so little, the slots can seep glue and you won't fit the keys unless you re-kerf for them, a bit wider. Voice of experience...
Colleen, thanks for the advice re: knocking apart keyed miters. Fortunately, right after gluing up the bloodwood box I was able to see that the joints sucked, so I didn't even bother cutting the kerfs and fitting the ebony keys.
(Actually, it was several days later; I had to go out of town while the box was in clamps. And, to be more specific, it wasn't the joints, per se, that were bad, it was that I misjudged the dimensions of the copper piece and its plywood support, and the corresponding depth of the dadoes it fits in. I knew it wasn't a good fit when I was gluing up, but I hoped the clamps would be strong enough to force the darn thing together! HA! I know, I know, it was dumb -- but that's what you do at the end of a cold day in the shop -- and why I don't use power tools in the late afternoon! I love learning lessons about impatience on small, repairable items!)
So, bottom-line, I just need to take apart the mitered joints. But right now, with the temps hovering near 0-degrees, it just takes too long and too much wood to heat my shop up to even bearable temps. I just got a small, radiant heater to mount to the ceiling above my workbench and supplement the woodstove, but haven't set it up yet. And the landlord for my small workspace in Chicago -- heated -- still hasn't managed to kick out the alcoholic prior tenant. Fun...
I'll start a separate thread on the patination.
David
"The world that was not made is not won by what is done" -- Mundaka Upanishad
Edited 2/11/2003 7:59:38 AM ET by davamoore
I have tried the stick on stuff and the spray on in more than several dozen boxes. The spray on is okay, but messy and you'd better wear a mask. I buy scrap matting from a picture framer, cut it just under size, put some fiberfil padding over it and then cut and fit my velvet. It is superior for elegance than the other stuff. I have also used auto headliner material. But velt is sharp. You can fit the mde up pieces in the box with Elmers, hotglue gun spots, or the spray adhesive (it is also messy). You are right in my opinion. In a jewlery box, other than the lid or drawer configuration, the inside is the eye-catcher. Velvet is best, maybe silk.
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