I made this box for my nephew who joined the marines. It is designed to be something that could hold keepsakes and can lock to secure the contents. Potentially as a pistol box. It locks along the entire front edge, and the hinge runs along the entire back edge. That way the box will be extremely secure.

The front could be engraved with anything a customer orders. The trick to get really clean filled engravings like this is to clear coat your material, mask it, engrave it, air blast any residue out, and then do another layer of clear coat. when that dries it will seal up any gaps between the mask and the material. Then you can spray on whatever paint fill you want. When you peel the mask it'll be perfect lines every time.

The inlay is also the cheating way of going though the full thickness of the re-sawn hardwood. And if you use what was the bottom in the laser cutter, it will be where the kerf is the thinnest and you get the best lines. The other method is to instead buy veneer sheets, and engrave the pockets until its deep enough the to fit the veneer. I personally don’t like that method because you have very little leeway for sanding.

The key is made thick and with very short nubs along with a perpendicular reinforcement so they are strong enough to hold up, hopefully for a lifetime.

The inside is lined with foam that is wrapped with felt to be soft, springy, looks clean, and matches the walnut skin.

The planks of walnut I had were too thin to cover the entire case size, I used some dove tail joints running the length of the boards. To add some design depth I used some that were wide and some that were narrow alternated.