Louis Cubes are a wonderfully mesmerising effect achieved by the clever use of just three pieces of veneer carefully cut and arranged. The decorative and 3-D look of these cubes makes marvellous cabinet decoration that is guaranteed to enthral and amaze everyone who views it.  
 

Louis cubes, as mentioned and described above, are a clever arrangement of three pieces of veneer which when done as Alf will describe to you, will give you a surprisingly effective 3-D illusion that you can use for furniture or picture frame decoration.

The Louis cubes are very effective when used for decorating small boxes. I have also seen a superb use made of Louis cubes in decorating the covers of a large book, and also a "treasure chest" style of lidded container/box. The only problem with Louis cubes is that they become so addictive that you start using them to decorate everything in your house that has a flat and blank surface!

Right, well we had better let Alf get on with his demonstration, over to you Alf:  
 

LOUIS CUBES. 

Note: When you were cutting your pieces for your chess board you were making 90 degree cuts, for these Louis cubes, in order to achieve the necessary diamond shapes you will be making 60 degree cuts with the help of the 60 degree angle you will have fixed to the cutting board in conjunction with your template blocks.

With the template in position cut one strip approximately 7 or 8 inches in length (178 x 204 mm) from each piece of veneer (as shown below in example A).

Place the piece of veneer against the 60° angle and with the template in position along the bottom edge then make the first cut (example B). The first cut piece which will be a small triangle can be thrown away. Slide the veneer down until it touches the lip on the board and with the template in position make the next cut so that you now have a diamond shape, and so on to the end of the strip so that you have a series of veneer diamonds, do exactly the same with the other two veneers, you should now have a number of pieces (example C). Tape the pieces together to form the cube.

If you have assembled them correctly your Louis cubes should look like those cubes shown in example D. You can go on adding more cubes ad infinitum until you have sufficient for your project.

It's not too important which veneers you choose for your Louis cubes. The most important points are that they should be contrasting veneers and, although this isn't too crucial, that they should be reasonably easy cutting veneers that don't splinter readily, otherwise you'll have to tape the reverse side of the veneer to prevent splitting and breaking.