Project: Mithril
In the days following the War of the Ring, as the Fellowship rested in Gondor, word traveled fast to all the peoples of Middle-Earth. In Lothlorién, Galadriel commissioned a memorial of the journey of Frodo the Nine-Fingered and Samwise Gamgee to Orodruin, the Cracks of Doom and the destruction of the One Ring. She commissioned her most cunning of artisans to design something fitting of the ones who had saved all of Middle-Earth. To them she gave much of the store of wealth of the Elves, to make a gift to the kindreds of Middle-Earth to endure throughout the centuries. Many and varied were her gifts, but among the most precious was mithril...
As in the days of Vingilot, Eärendil's ship that bore he and the Silmaril into the West and was set forever as a star shining to light a way in darkness, they chose of the finest woods. In the last of the war, battle raged ever closer to Lorién, and mallorn trees had fallen. Of this, the artisans selected those that bore a peculiar figuring, noting the last touches of darkness in the light, hard wood. Fitting then that these trees that were felled by darkness would live on in a tribute to the power of hope.
The wood for the side panels has already been pieced together from strips of spalted ash, glued and planed to approximately a half-inch thickness. Even so, each side weighs over 7 pounds, but there is cutting and profiling to be done yet.
I have the case skeleton assembled from 1x12 white pine, but it's with a more experienced woodworker, having a bow taken out of one of the boards (my apartment is apparently incredibly damp, and it's pretty detrimental to wood) and some router work done. I have more to see, but right now, my help says it's not quite time to work...
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