I made this box for my wife as a birthday present for her 40th. The top is veneered MDF framed with black-white-black stringing and then framed again with tiger maple strips. The box body is QS cherry with a thin piece of lacewood around the top of the box. The interior was lined with red suede. Finish is shellac and wax. The box is heavily influenced by Ian Hawthorne’s work and the hinges are his neat hinges. I also want to say thank you to Roger Bean who answered several of my questions about his box lining methods. Breaking the rules a little with this one as I have not finished the interior tray that will go with the box so this is not a completely “finished” project….sorry. I had to move it out of the shop to start another project and figured I just post it now. Thanks for looking.

I want to continue experimenting with veneer so I looked around Lumberjocks and found a couple small veneer presses. This is my simple version. Table to 1/2” MDF with some wood strips to help stiffen it a little more. The table is about 13” by 18”. The side members were dadoed to accept the table and mortised to accept the cross member with the veneer screws. I bolted the cross member with 1/2” bolts. Last picture is the press in use. Hope to does a good job…I’ll see in a few hours.

Well the inspiration for this box (and the great nickle hinges) comes from fellow lumberjock Ian Hawthorne. I really admire his boxes and wanted to take a shot at veneering so away I went. The top is veneered MDF. I started by glueing in the burl veneer and then surrounded it with the lighter veneer (sorry but I forget the woods used). Where they meet, I routed a border and inlayed some wenge and then framed the whole top in wenge as well. The box itself is QS cherry with a bottom of QS sycamore. The finish is shellac and wax.

The hinges are absolutely outstanding and I am not just saying that because Ian is a member here. The quality is top notch and they are very, very easy to install on a router table. By easy, I mean minutes from set-up to finish screws.

Learned a lot with this one. Not sure it shows on the top but I almost sanded through the lighter veneer. The veneer glue up was interesting as well. Next project is going to be a small scale veneer press. I was going to put a lock in this box but as you may have seen already in picture 5, I started to cut the top off in the wrong place and had to fill the void. Just not paying attention. Overall, I am happy with my first attempt. Having not done this before, I had no idea highly figured veneer was so cheap and goes a long way on small projects like boxes. I see many boxes in my future and a large hinge order coming Ian’s way. Thanks for looking.

After seeing all the great cutting board designs here on Lumberjocks, I got an idea how to cover up the griddle portion of my family’s range top. I went with a zig-zag design which really spoke to me. Trying to figure out how big to make the “blank” so I would have a large enough board to cover the area brought me back to middle school days. I had to look up the formulas for sine and cosine and thought I got it right but forgot about the little nubs at the end that needed to be cut off so the board ended up narrower than required which was o.k. just glued on some strips of walnut. The ends are breadboarded to the main body of the board. Woods are wlanut, maple and cherry with birdseye maple on the ends. Finished with mineral oil/wax mix. The second photo is before and third photo is after. Big difference if I do say so myself. Thanks for looking and thanks to degoose fand all the other board makers for inspiration.

My oldest child and only daughter turns 11 in December so I decided to make her a “special” jewerly box since she is getting to that age now where (as surprising as it is for an 11 year old) she is accumulating jewerly. I was surfing arouns the Lumberjocks site and came across no better inspiration than from the amazing works of GaryK and specificly his beautiful Wood Collection Box “Lumberjocks” http://lumberjocks.com/projects/7298 My version is made from Cherry with maple and walnut strips sandwiched within the sides and exposed via a cove cut on the table saw as shown in Gary’s blog. The lid was made from a small slab of crotch walnut I had sitting around waiting for a “special” purpose. The interior lower dividers are also cherry but were milled from a tree in my back yard as is the bottom of the box which was flocked. My daughter really digs that the wood is from our own trees. The removable tray is wenge with cherry trim and a sycamore handle. The box was finished with several coats of shellac (6-8 coats, I lost track now) and a coat of wax on top. Really like this finish. Smooth as glass and invites the touch. My wife and daughter have already commented on the finish and how much they like it. The interior was flocked which was a new technique for me and went fairly well. Thanks for looking and a big Thank You to GaryK for sharing his great woodworking mind with the rest of us.

This box was pulled together from the scrap pile. Didn’t even have enough wood to make the sides all the same species. The top is obviously a glue up and I wanted to give it some kind of different look so I made some angled cuts. When I got it all glued up, I thought it looked sort of like rays of light or sunshine rays. I just left the tear out and burn marks from construction since it was just a “trial” piece. The best part is I’ll give it to one of my kids and they will think that the “defects” are the best part of the whole thing. Gotta love that about kids, they appreciate stuff for what it is and never worry about the flaws or what it isn’t. Threw in a photo of them. Hope that isn’t against the posting rules. Sorry if it is. Thanks for looking.

While this is not my first box, there is a “first’” in this box for me. I always wanted to try a little banding so I gave it a shot on this box. I made the banding myself from some small pieces of scrap maple, sycamore and bubinga. Cut it to size and laid it in. The box body is cherry with a birdseye maple top and bubinga splines. The bottom is glued up sycamore scraps. Interior parts are cherry and maple/sycamore. Finished with a BLO/wiping varnish mix. I gave this to my wife to use as a box to hold all her different tea’s. Thanks for looking.