Walnut and Maple Mitered Boxes with Poplar Interior v1.0

I've been itching to make some more boxes. I really liked the way my pencil top boxes with ebony splines came out. With the exception of the lids. Those were hard to fit properly. They ended up being a little too sloppy for my liking. So, I decided to try a different style of lid.

I also wanted to use some of the thin hardwood boards that I bought for my laser, because, well, they didn't need planed to thickness and because I had a large collection of them that was getting a bit out of hand. However, the thin boards were not thick enough to cut a rabbet or a dado into, so the top and bottom would need another way to attach. I always wanted to try the kind of box that has a second layer of wood that lines the interior, so that's what I went for. Usually those kinds of boxes have the interior panels stick up above the rim and the lid fits down over the lip created by the interior wall. This is how you make boxes that start off closed on the top and bottom, then you cut through the side to separate the top from the rest of the box. These boxes would not be like that. Instead, the interior wall would be shorter than the exterior sides of the box, and allow the bottom of the lid to set down inside. You'll see what I mean.

Walnut is my favorite wood (one of), so that's what I wanted to make the sides from. Walnut boards for my laser cost about $2 each, and poplar boards cost less than $1 each, so I decided to make the interior walls, the lid bottom, and box bottom out of poplar.

I cut side pieces from walnut, about 2.5" tall and 4.5" long. I cut enough to make five boxes. I planned to use box joints for the outer walls, and then precisely fitted butt joints on the interior walls. Unfortunately, I ran into a little trouble with my box joint jig. It didn't want to cooperate. And though I had made box joint boxes with this jig before, today it was not happening. I ruined the ends of two (luckily only two) of the walnut boards before quitting in disgust and ordering an INCRA I-Box jig on Amazon. But that was going to take a week to arrive, and I didn't want to wait that long, so the next day I went back into the workshop and tried something else.

I decided to miter the corners, like I did with the pencil top box. But because these boards were much thinner, I was going to need a more delicate method of mitering the edges than the table saw. I was going to need a hand plane shooting board with a 45 degree "donkey-ear" attachment. 

Unfortunately, do to the aggravating previous day, I wasn't in much of a mood to take pictures during the creation of the shooting board or the "donkey-ear". And frankly, it came together very fast and there isn't much too it. Suffice to say, it turned out rather well and seems to work pretty good. Might need some tweaking to make it more square, but it was good enough. Now I could use a hand plane to put very precise 45 degree miters on the ends of all the walnut boards.

 

I lined up the boards end to end, outer faces facing up, and made sure they were square against a straight edge. Then I put masking tape at each of the joints. The masking tape will serve as a clamp to hold all the sides tightly in place as the glue dries.

Then I flipped the boards over, exposing the mitered edges, and applied glue.

Once the glue was applied, I folded up the sides and stuck another piece of tape on the last edge to hold it in a box shape. I made a quick jig out of some scrap wood to hold the box sides square while the glue dried. My jig could hold two boxes square at a time. They only needed to be in it until the glue started to set up.

Next, I cut pieces of poplar to serve as the bottom of the box and for the interior walls of the box. I dialed in the size of each piece using the shooting board. But this time, I didn't use the "donkey-ear". The interior pieces have 90 degree flat ends and are fitted tightly in place with a butt joint.

The poplar interior walls are shorter than the exterior walls to create a rabbet on the bottom edge for the bottom panel, and a slightly larger rabbet at the top edge to accommodate the lid. After being dry fitted, I glued the interior walls to the walnut sides, and also put glue along the ends of the poplar boards to butt joint them together. This will reinforce the miter joint of the thin walnut exterior walls, since they won't be reinforced with splines.

The very first box I made got the bottom panel glued in at the same time as the sides, but I quickly realized this was a mistake. If I leave the bottom panel until last, it will be easier to position the interior lid panel when gluing it to the lid. Making sure that the lid fits on properly is very important to this design. So for the other boxes, I just used scrap pieces of poplar as spacers when gluing in the interior walls. The bottom would be added later.

The lids I cut out of maple, the same thickness as the other boards (approx. 0.180" thick). But these I cut out on the laser, and added a different design to each one. On some of them, I gave a quick coat of spray paint before I took off the masking tape from the laser process. This gave a nice dark color to the burned areas.

I made the lids just very slightly larger than the box perimeter. I figured it would be hard to get everything to fit perfectly, and a slight overhang (less than a millimeter) would be preferable to being undersized.

Oh. BTW, one of the boxes came out rectangular instead of square, because I decided to use the two boards that I had messed up with the box joint jig. I just cut off the bad end and mitered them a little shorter. No big deal. If I hadn't, I would have not only wasted the two messed up boards, but the other two sides as well, because I had the perfect number of cut pieces to make five boxes.

I cut poplar pieces for the lid interior, pretty much the exact same size as the box bottom, and dialed in the best fit I could with the shooting board (at 90 degrees). Then I used the box to help me line up the interior lid panel on the underside of the lid to get the best fit. I glued the poplar panel to the underside of the maple lid and held it down with weights. This was a mistake. It needed stronger and more even clamping pressure. Some of the panels started to curl as the glue dried. I fixed this by adding more glue to the widening joint at the edges and clamping all around with spring clamps.

I sanded all the exterior sides, with the random orbital sander, to 220 grit. The box bottoms needed more attention, as some of them were a little proud of the box sides and needed to be sanded flush. Then I put the first coat of finish on them; 1/3 BLO, 1/3 Poly (oil based), 1/3 mineral spirits. I let this soak in for about 15 minutes and then wiped off the excess. After letting them dry for 24 hours, I came back and sanded the sides lightly with a 220 sanding sponge.

I like the look of an oil rub finish, but there is a trap you can fall into. I call it the "2 coats or 10" trap. Your first two coats of an oil finish (like BLO or tung oil) will completely soak in and give you a matte oil finish. But if you want something with more gloss, you have to do more coats. Well, the next few coats will start to build up a more satin or gloss finish, but it will be patchy, because the wood absorbs the oil more in some areas. To get enough build up on the entire surface with no patchiness, you end up doing ten or more coats and waiting a day between each. That's a lot of tedious finishing time.

This time, I wanted to avoid that trap, but I still wanted more gloss than one or two oil coats can give. So, for the second coat, I tried a new finish that is popular with guitar and gun stock makers. It's called Tru-Oil. You just coat the surface and rub it in until it is all evenly coated and mostly absorbed, and let it dry for 24 hours. Re-coat as desired. It is an oil finish, that also builds up a varnish film finish as you apply coats. One coat of my BLO mixture and one coat of Tru-Oil gave me a satin finish that was not patchy. It could have probably benefited from another coat of Tru-Oil, but this looked good enough. I didn't put the Tru-Oil on the interior of the box. The BLO treatment would be good enough for that.

While I was waiting for the finish to dry, I decided to make a little card detailing when the item was made and from what materials. Sometimes I forget what kinds of wood I used on which projects, and it is always helpful when selling an item to be able to tell the customer what woods were used. So, I made a little card that will stay with the box, and remind the customer as well. I am going to try to do something like this to all my projects in the future.

I added my logo to the bottom of the box. I have a sheet of them printed out that I stained with tea some time ago. When I need one I use the water tearing technique to separate one from the sheet and glue it to the item with pva glue.

Lastly, I put some self adhesive cork pads on the bottom corners to serve as feet, in case the bottom of the box isn't perfectly flat.

And now, some glamour shots.

1.5" Candle Holder

At my shop, we sell a line of pre-made spell candles that are 1.5" in diameter. These candles are hand made (not by me) and the bases are not perfectly flat. The odd diameter and the imperfect bottom make finding a holder for them a little challenging. To combat that problem, I have custom made some quick wooden block style holders designed especially for these candles.

The cat's name is Luna ;)

The holder is just a square block of solid walnut with rounded over edges and two holes drilled in it. I made the prototype batch of six holders in about an hour (not counting finish drying time).

I got walnut from the scrap bin at my favorite hardwood dealer. I just measured the width of the board and set a stop block to that same width to cut the blocks off at the chop saw. Then I found the center of the top and the front face. I used a 1.5" forstner bit to drill a hole in the top to accept the candle, and a 1-3/8" forstner bit to drill a shallow hole in the front face to accept a maple inlay cut on the laser (1.38" diameter, 0.18" thickness). The top and side edges were eased over with a 1/8" round over bit at the router table.

As it turns out, the little aluminum cups that tea lights come in fit perfectly into the top hole, and so that will protect the wood from the burning candle. Hopefully. Never leave a candle burning unattended, kids. Especially in a WOODEN candle holder!

The finishing was a bit of a hodge-podge. I started out using danish oil, but I didn't want to wait for multiple coats to dry, so after the first coat I switched to shellac. But even after two coats of shellac (and sanding in between) they didn't have a nice shine, so I then gave them a quick spray of clear lacquer from a rattle can. Maybe with the next batch I'll try just one or two coats of polyurethane.

UPDATE::
So, these are just some production notes, mostly for my own benefit.

After finishing the prototype batch of six candle holders, I started a production run of about sixty. I had a small stack of walnut boards of the same dimension, so I decided to use them all up and make a big batch so I wouldn't need to make more for a while. Sixty is just a bit too much to work on in one batch. I found myself very tired and bored by the end of each step. Forty would have been a more managable batch size.

In the prototype batch, I only rounded the edges of the top and sides. In the production run I also rounded the bottom edges and around the top hole where the candle fits in. My router bit is starting to get dull, and I should have spent more time hand sanding these rounded over parts. They tend to snag the cloth when I am doing finishing.

One mistake I made that didn't become apparent until after the fact, was the order of operations. I drilled the top and face holes in the block before routing the edges, just like in the prototype batch. I discovered that the router bit wanted to dip into the front face hole, especially when rounding the bottom edge, which caused a noticeable divot in the edge. I should have marked the centers for the holes first (and definitely use an awl to make a divot for the drill bit to follow), then routed the edges, then drilled the holes, and then go back to the router to round over the edge of the top hole.

The sides were sanded to 500 grit on the disk sander. then I tried a new approach to finishing. I mixed 1/3 BLO, 1/3 oil based polyurethane and 1/3 mineral spirits. I dunked each part into a bath of the mixture and let it drip dry a few seconds before setting it out on a piece of cardboard. After about 15 minutes (about halfway through the batch) I wiped off the excess finish with a shop towel and set them to dry. Do NOT use the shop rags, they leave lint like crazy. Use paper towels or a blue shop towel.

After letting the finish cure for 24 hours,  lightly sanded each face by dragging it two or three times over a piece of 1000 grit sandpaper on a flat surface. Not really sure if this step helped.

Then I repeated the oil bath finish a second time. I did not repeat the sanding after this second coat. I could have left them here. They looked nice, but had a satin finish. I wanted more gloss, so I decided to do a few coats of wipe-on poly. I probably should have just left them as-is, or maybe done one coat of spray top coat. After two coats of wipe-on poly, the finish was patchy. I'm hoping a third coat will be the end of it. [some of them were good after the third coat. some could have used one more, but I just polished them all with paste wax and made an end of it.]

Smudge Fan v3.0

To date, one of the most popular posts on this blog (and certainly on Pinterest) is my first attempt at making a smudging fan. And as I have previously stated, I hated that project. I only made that version of fan one time, and only made four of those fans total. Then I tried a new design, which was much simpler and I liked the finished product much better. I have made several dozen of the second iteration of smudging fan, and still use that design when making new fans. However, today I worked on a new design, or rather a variation of the second design, and it turned out fairly well.

This fan came about as a way to salvage a damaged feather, because I was too cheap to just throw it away. I prepared a batch of wild turkey feathers to be made into v2.0 fans, by trimming the tips and inserting a bamboo skewer into the quill to give it strength. I then cut the skewer to the desired length of my handle. This makes it possible to get a decent handle of a consistent length, even if the quill is damaged, weak or short.

Normally, I would then just wrap the handle with suede leather lace, and add a few beads to the ends of the lace and call it done, but this time I decided to apply a new technique I had read about, wherein one uses a hot iron to flatten and straighten the feather. Here is where things went wrong. I set my iron too hot and it melted the vane on one side. It only melted part of it, and only about half-way up, but it made the feather pretty ugly and unusable. I was just about to throw it away when I got the idea to see if I could convincingly cover up the damaged part with another smaller feather.

I selected a couple of smaller wild turkey feathers to overlap the main feather on either side (thus covering up the damaged part of the vane). I held the shafts of the smaller feathers in place with a wooden clothes pin and used thick CA glue and spray activator to glue the shafts together. I didn't like the way the junction where the three feathers came together looked, so I covered it up with a small black marabou feather, also attached with CA glue.

I then began wrapping the handle with suede leather lace, making sure to cover over the joint where the shafts came together. I put a few dabs of CA glue under the leather in a few spots to make sure the wrapping didn't shift or come loose.

 In the picture just above, you can see the damaged part of the main feather along the right side.

As I did with v2.0, I added some accent beads to the ends of the leather wrapping, and that was it. Not terribly complicated, or significantly more difficult to make, but a little fancier than v2.0. I might make a couple more of these and sell them at a premium (compared to the simpler v2.0), but it is unlikely they will replace v2.0 completely.

Splined Mitered Tarot Box v1.0

Ugh- allergies. I have come to find that if I don't use a respirator when I'm doing wood working, even just a little bit, I will get an allergy attack. And now, I have runaway sinuses, because last night... I did a thing.

This is a tarot card box, with splined mitered corners and a pencil box sliding top. The sides are made from sapele. The top and bottom are soft maple, and the splines are black ebony.

It all stared with a piece of sapele. It looked pretty straight, but it rocked on the table a little bit, so I used a hand plane and a planer to take the small twist out. Truth be told, I probably caused more damage with the hand plane than I did good with it, but at least the twist was lessened. Next, I re-sawed the board on the band saw to split it in half.

 Of course, then I had to run it through the planer again to smooth out the band saw marks. Once both sides of both pieces were nice and flat, and both pieces were the same thickness, I started cutting out the pieces for the sides of the box. There is a trick to the way you cut the pieces from the stock in order to create a continuous grain pattern all the way around the box. Oh, it's worth mentioning that this is the first time I've ever tried to make a box like this. Actually, it's only the second time I've ever tried to make a box at all. I made a few finger jointed candle boxes when I first started getting into wood working.

So, this being the first time trying to do the whole continuous grain thing (or even the whole splined mitered box thing), it didn't quite go to plan. I must have misjudged the length of the sides, because when I got to the last piece, the remaining board wasn't long enough. I had planned to make one 4"x6"x4" box from each of the two book-matched boards. But I had to cut a piece from the second board to make up the shortfall. This means that three of the sides will have continuous grain, and the fourth will be mismatched. Luckily, sapele does not have a very pronounced grain pattern, so it won't be very noticeable.

The next step was to cut the 45 degree miters on each piece. There was some burning during the cut because the table saw blade was dull. I eventually changed it, but I should have done so sooner. I test fitted the four pieces together, and the miters came out pretty good, but I noticed that the box seemed really tall. I was kind of bummed that I wasn't going to get two boxes out of this piece of sapele, do to the fact that I had to take that fourth piece from the second half of the board, so I started thinking, maybe I can cut the height in half. That would give me two boxes that are only 2" tall. I wasn't sure if that would be enough height to be useful, but I was willing to give it a try, so I marked the half way line and cut it in half on the band saw. The table saw would have given me a straighter cut, but would have taken up an eighth of an inch in the kerf. I couldn't afford to loose that much height, so I cut very carefully on the band saw and sanded the sawn edge flat (which I then used as the bottom edge of the box).

 I had originally planned to use a 3/16" dado for the lid and for the bottom of the box, but in order to save some of the height of the interior of the box, I decided that the bottom could be rabbeted in. This would save about 3/16" of interior height. I was using a 3/16" thick plank of soft maple for the lid and bottom, so I made two passes with the saw blade to create the rabbet, then cleaned it up with a chisel. The rabbet was made just a hair wider than the thickness of the bottom panel, so that the box would rest on the bottom edges, not on the bottom panel, and so I would have some edge to sand in order to true up the bottom later.

Then I needed to make one more cut to make the dado in which the lid would slide. This was also done with two passes of the table saw blade (which is nominally 1/8" thick). The first pass established the lid's distance down from the top of the box. The second pass widened the dado to fit the thickness of the lid panel.

 The fourth side had to be cut a little differently. It didn't get a dado. It got cut off at the height of the dado, so the lid would slide out through this side, and not be captured by it. So, I cut this one last, and just raised the height of the blade while making the second pass to cut all the way through the piece.

Finally, it was time for glue-up. This is where it really started to look like the beginnings of a box. I laid the pieces end to end, using a square to make sure that the edge of the bottom rabbet of each piece was perfectly in line. Inconsistencies in top and bottom edges of the pieces could be sanded out later, but the rabbet and the dado needed to be perfectly in line at this stage. I connected the pieces with masking tape at the seams along what would be the outside of the box.

 I put wood glue along all the mitered edges and rolled up the box ends, taping it shut. This method holds all the edges in perfect alignment, and the tape also acts as a clamp for the glue. Just use a square to make sure the corners are perfect, and give it a little squeeze in the right direction if they are not. No other clamping necessary.

While the glue was drying, I started working on the top and bottom panels. These I made from pre-sawn 3/16" thick planks of maple that I got from my favorite lumber store, specifically because they are great for use in my laser cutter.  They got cut to rough size, then sanded, then covered with transfer tape (it's like masking tape) to prevent smoke staining. Then I worked up a design for the box tops in Inkscape and cut it out on the Glowforge.

I was making two boxes at once, so I made two different designs for the box tops. I had previously measured the actual  dimensions of the rabbet in order to determine the dimensions of the top and bottom panels. Since the rabbet and the dado were cut to the same depth, the top and bottom panels should be the same dimensions.

 I test fitted the top and bottom panels. The bottoms fit OK. Some small gaps probably caused from the box sides being slightly out of square, but acceptable. The lids would need a little massaging with the sander to fit properly.

I glued in the bottom panel and let it dry under weight, but before that, I used some sanding dust and wood glue to fill in any gaps in the mitered corners. This would be sanded smooth later.

 At this point, I needed to make a decision about whether or not to use splines on my miters. I had intended to, but it sure was tempting to just leave them as is. Tempting because adding splines means a whole other level of complexity, and another set of operations with which I had no experience. Basically, it meant another chance for me to screw something up. But ultimately, I decided it was worth it, so I soldiered ahead. There was just one problem, I had my mind set on a dark wood for the spline material, and the sapele was already pretty dark, so I turned to using ebony for the splines. But I only had a little 1.5"x1"x1" nub of ebony left over from turning pendulums. Well, I had more ebony, but I didn't want to bust it out, because it's expensive and I'm cheap. So I forced myself to try to get sixteen splines out of this little nub.

Did I say one problem? I meant two. Two problems. The second being; I don't have a spline jig.

Time for a side-bar.

::  MAKING A SPLINE JIG v1.0  ::

I had never made a spline jig before, but I had seen several of them used in various videos on Youtube (here, here and here). So I re-watched the video with one of the simpler designs, and got to it.

I started by cutting some scraps of 3/4" plywood to make a long arch that would slide over the rip fence of my table saw. The side pieces were lightly clamped to the fence for a snug fit, and the top was glued on and stapled from the top with 1" crown staples.

Then I trimmed and squared up the edges of a scrap piece of MDF to use as the face of the jig. I found the mid point and set a framing square with the corner touching the bottom edge at a 45 degree angle. I used a speed square along the bottom edge of the MDF to ensure the angle was 45 degrees. 

Then I carefully removed the speed square and replaced it with two scraps of 3/4" plywood, 1" wide and about 5" long (the dimensions really don't mater). Those got glued in place, on either side of the framing square, forming a "V". They also got 1" crown staples to clamp them down while the glue dried. I made sure to keep the staples away from the bottom end of the scraps, in case I ever needed to run the saw blade that high and through the "V". I probably would never need to, but now I won't hit staples if I ever do.

The MDF face plate was a bit tall, so I cut it in half before attaching it to the shuttle (the part that slides over the fence). I wanted to make sure I could remove the face plate if I ever decided to change it (so I wouldn't have to re-make the shuttle) so I didn't use any glue to attach it. I pre-drilled and countersunk for screws and screwed it to the shuttle with 1.25" course decking screws.

 And that's it. That's how you make a simple spline jig. Just rest your work piece in the "V" and hold it to the faceplate. Adjust your fence to align the blade with where you want your splines. Set your depth of the splines with the blade height, and run the shuttle along the fence to cut your slots for your splines.

 PRO TIP: use a sharp blade and go slow to avoid tare out, and if you have the option, use a blade with a flat ground tooth. I didn't have one, so standard combination blade it is.

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OK- So there's your bonus post for the day. I hope you enjoyed it. Now, back to the splined boxes.

Here is the box, all slotted up and ready for splines. As you saw in one of the pictures above, I cut the nub of ebony into slices on the band saw. What you didn't see was me sanding the crap out of those slices to make them fit into those slots.

 Once I got them to the proper thickness, I glued in the splines, just a couple at a time. Then, after the glue set, I would cut them with a small flush cut hand saw, and then reuse the left over slice of ebony in another slot. I used a scrap of card stock under my saw to make sure I didn't mar the surface of the box, and provide a little extra clearance, but this probably wasn't really necessary.

 I repeated this process until all sixteen splines (two per corner on two boxes) were in place, and in case you're wondering, here is all that was left of that nub of ebony when I was done.

 I could have maybe made one more spline out of it. Now that's what I call, getting my money's worth!

With the splines in place, we're almost finished. I sanded the splines flush with the sides of the boxes on the disk sander, then I sanded the whole box up to 500 grit with the orbital sander and a sheet of sand paper glued to a flat granite tile. I had to do a bit of sanding on the lids too, to make them fit properly.

Then each box and lid got two coats of shellac, with a very light sanding in between. Once that was dry, I put on a coat of paste wax, especially along the edges of the lids where they will slide in the dados.  The final touch was my logo added to the underside of the box.

And that's the ballgame. Two sapele, maple and ebony boxes with sliding tops and splined mitered corners. My first real "box" project (not counting the candle boxes).
And now, the glamour shots.

 Oh, there is one small detail I left out. You'll notice on the latter pics a small divot on the right side of the lids. This is a thumbnail groove, to help with opening the lid. It was made with a small spindle sander on a dremel. I don't really like how it came out. That, and the fit of the lids is my least favorite part of these boxes. But overall, I'm very happy with them. Especially for a first attempt. It took me two days to finish them, but I can probably cut that down some with more practice.