Mass Wood working

Hello Again,

Afte I finished working on the calico box, I turned my attention to the pine box and I finished the lid. Here are some photos:

I began the lid with a round pine blank. As this piece of wood was only 3/4" thick, it needed to have a small block glued to the top for a knob and that is what you see here:


Here is a photo of the blank in my vise with an additional C-clamp holding it fast while the glue dries. Ive lined up both pieces with a wooden pin and if you look carefully you can see the pin in the center of the photo. This prevents the pieces from shifting while its being clamped together:

Hi Everyone,

Well its Tuesday and its time to get back down to the wood shop and do some work.

Picking up where we left off-its time to work on the lids for the gift boxes and possibly refine the designs a little bit so were going to work on the hackberry box first.

This box if you remember wasnt my favorite of the lot. The wood is very soft and friable and it tears the second a tool is applied to the surface. And the color wasnt at all interesting. I turned it into a small calabash shape and left it for the weekend to think about it a bit.

I decided to leave this box alone as it has a good shape for its size and the color isnt the worst thing in the world. It does need a well thought out lid to take it from a small wooden box to something that is eye pleasing and useful.

I looked through some books and decided to make a Raffan-style lid for it. Raffan boxes are named after Richard Raffan, the Australian wood turner who popularized this style and is well known in the wood turning world (you can see his webpage and his box style at http://www.richardraffan.com/node/105). The boxes have lids which tend to be rounded, often employ a flange-like structure at the base of the lid, and often feature short, triangular-shaped finials on them.

I think a Raffan-style lid is what the box needs and so Im going to give it a shot.

Here we go:

I have a lovely scrap piece of maple in the shop and I thought the color would work well with the box so I proceeded to make a turning blank and place it on the lathe:


A split second after I gently touched the wood with the tool, it promptly split off a big chunk of wood. So this had to be discarded and I started over again:


I looked around the shop and I didnt immediately see anything that would work for the lid. As I was beginning to do the wringing of hands-knashing of teeth thing, I spotted a small block of linden wood and decided to make the lid out of this. Its the right color, and its thick enough for what I needed it for:


So I placed it on the lathe and turned a small tenon on the top:


And flipped it over to turn the tenon on the underside which will fit into the box:

And since linden wood is soft, that took all of about 2 minutes to do:


Once that was finished I flipped it over again and began to shape the top of the lid:


First I trued up the edge:



And then took it off the lathe and set it on the box. Its wide enough to proceed:


And this step produced this shape. Next I rounded off the sloping area and rounded off the edges of the flange:
 And I took it off the lathe to look at it again. The finial needs to be created next:


Here you can see the finial on the top. I turned away some of the rounded section and flattened it a little-I thought it was beginning to take on that hand-grenade shape I seem to be famous for. This gave me material to turn the finial. Here it is with a finial:


I then smoothed the edges and narrowed the finial just a little and then sanded it. Hmmm, it doesnt look half bad.
Im going to stop with this box and look at it for another day or so and then determine whether to discard it and begin again or to finish it off.


The next box to deal with is the cedar of Lebanon box. As its really hot here, Im going to stop here momentarily and go inside and cool off a bit. Be back in a few minutes.



VW

Hi Everyone,

Well, I went down to the wood shop just to look around and look at the basswood block for this project and of course I couldnt resist it and did a little turning. Here are some photos:

I trimmed the end off of the block and noticed a wee bit of spalting on the end grain surface. I guess this wont be a solid color box:


OK, I COULDNT RESIST IT!! I decided to do just a wee bit of turning and turned it into this 4 1/2" cylinder. This is a non-spalted side of the block:


 And here it is with tenons on each end and Ive marked the block for cutting away the lid:

The block I began with was 5x5x12" and Ive turned it to just under 4 1/2" and its still rather large for a music box. I may just narrow it down a bit. Ill cogitate on this over night.

Its great to be back to work again.

More later,
VW

For my sons first birthday I made him the Skunk Bench. For his second, Im making him a set of blocks. Of course, I hadnt been working on the blocks for very long when I realized that they would need a place to live. Bam! New project!

I decide to make a chest. I looked through Lon Schleinings excellent book Treasure Chests and saw several "sea chests" that inspired me. Of course, I had to change things; its what I do.

Some changes come from my design muse, some from problem solving during the construction process. I like it when the changes provide a certain amount of "funky" or "quirky" character to a piece - it keeps things interesting. Ive posted about this before.

I sketched out a rough design and went with a raised panel bottom set in grooves in the sides and ends. On a chest this size, I think it would be more common, and arguably better - as it would have not stolen from the depth of the interior, to just nail on a solid bottom. But I liked the idea and how it makes the box different.

Once I started building, a couple of other changes appeared. First I didnt have wide enough stock to make the top out of one board, and rather than gluing up wider stock, I modified the top design completely. Then, after numerous attempts at modifying the handle hardware, I threw it away keeping only the bails; and replaced the mounting hardware with simple eye screws. All the hardware I blackened with a linseed oil patina that I first experimented with back on the Turning Saw project. After seeing the blackened hardware sitting on the raw wood of the box, I liked it so much I abandoned my original idea of painting the box.

After deciding not to paint the box, I also decided to leave the nails exposed, and to use wrought head nails to attach the hinges. This was the first time Id used the clench nail technique, and I had mixed results. The nails I had were either too short or too long. As nails that are too short are not clenchable, I went with the too long option - but things got messy. In the end, it worked, but it was not pretty...

One special thing about this project for my son was that I used a tool with family history. Its a hand drill from our hardware store, that my father gave me as a boy. I love the idea that there is a three generation connection in this project.

In the end, I think I created a functional box for the blocks, but one that has just the right amount of unique character to make it extra special for my son.




And finally, the traditional shot of the tool kit used on this project:


Not pictured: shooting board and miter box.