I’ve become fascinated by the Nebra Sky Disk so I thought it would be fun to try to reproduce it. Also, I wanted to give a living hinge box a try. So here’s my box:
The process I used for the box top was as follows:
Masked a thin sheet of brass with transfer tape, and did a score on the design lines. That cut through the masking so I could peel off the areas I wanted to paint.
Cut out the circle with metal snips, and painted the whole top with gesso mixed with a little marble dust.
Colored the top with Prismacolor pencils (I used about 12 different shades of blue and green to go for the mottled look) and melted the colors together with odorless mineral spirits. Several layers of this.
Sprayed the top with workable fixatif, 3 coats.
Peeled off the masking from the top to reveal the metal areas. It was too shiny so I used a pin in a pin vise to scratch the surface in a circular fashion reduce the shine.
Added UV resin to just the metal areas to get a 3D look.
Glued the metal to the lid of my box, and added a ring of walnut PG veneer to cover the edge.
I’m pretty pleased by how it worked out. The box is a standard living hinge circular box but I had a few hiccups due to the design file (which I got from an Instructable) had some double lines and other issues that I had to fix.
I was intending to donate the box to the cat shelter I support for their fundraiser, but dang! I really like it.
That is beautiful! I love the living hinge idea used for the body of the box. I’m glad you provided the link to the Nebra Sky Disk because I hadn’t heard of it before - neato!
I am enlightened. Thanks. Love the box design. I think the Inkscape elliptical box extension works well but you have to tweak it and it can be a challenge to install with dependency issues. But now you have it as a base and can do many other things. Great inspiration.
Beautiful work!
I also loved that you included the link. I hadn’t heard of this before. The best part of the Wikipedia piece is this
"The two looters received sentences of four months and ten months, respectively, from a Naumburg court in September 2003. They appealed, but the appeals court raised their sentences to six and twelve months, respectively." Love that their appeal resulted in MORE time.
