| Blog series by JonH | updated 193 days ago | 9 parts | 3978 reads | 26 comments total |
Part 1: Lets Get Started
For the first part of the project, you must ask yourself, “What size is the box going to be?” If you aren’t sure, just take a couple 2×4’s and glue them together, or get a chunk of a cedar 4×4, they work good, and smell nice when they are cut up. You can get as elaborate as you want later on, but for starters keep things simple to manage. The project must be made from a solid piece of wood or several pieces glued together to become solid. By laminating ...
Part 2: Let the creativity flow.
Open up your creative mind and let it flow! The easiest design for a bandsaw box is one that allows for the fewest cuts. If you could make one continuous cut around the box, that would be great, but do what your design calls for. If you want square corners, you may need to use another tool like a miter saw to trim the ends of the block. For this example, I chose a heart shaped design. Draw the outline of the box on the front of the block.
Part 3: Give it some curves.
Cut out the shape of the body. For the heart example I needed two cuts. For some other more exotic examples, you may need more cuts, or maybe even one cut! Here one of my students demonstrates.
Part 4: Lets cut the back off of this thing.
Once the body is the right shape, cut ¼” to ½” off the back of the body and set that aside. That piece will be the back of the bandsaw box.
Part 5: Layout the drawers for easy cutting.
Draw the shape of the drawer on the body. Remember to think about the cut when you design your drawers. The idea is to make it easy to cut out the drawers in one continuous motion for each drawer. Since you are using a bandsaw, you aren’t able to avoid cutting through the sides of your project. In most cases, you can just glue the wood back together where you cut into the side and you will never notice. In some cases, you must cut into multiple sides of your box and glue the box bac...
Part 6: Put the Body of the Box back together.
Once you have cut the drawer out of the body, you can glue the box back together and attach the back of the box to the body. Make sure you clamp the body back together tight enough to hide the cut you made to create the drawer. If you have a complex drawer, you may have to glue the body back together first, then attach the back later.
Part 7: Lets hollow out that drawer.
While the body of the Bandsaw Box is drying, you can work on the drawer. Cut ¼” to ½” off the front and back of the drawer. Make sure you label the pieces so they go back together properly. We will then cut out the piece left over in the middle to create the cavity for the drawer. This can be anything you want, but it basically creates the amount of storage space in your drawer. It could be square or curved, but with a bandsaw you could accomplish nearly anything for this task. Just mak...
Part 8: Glue that drawer back together.
Glue the drawer together using the front, body and the back of the drawer. Remember to keep the chunk left over from the inside of the drawer to use for a drawer handle.
Part 9: The Grand Finale.
Remember the chunk of wood from inside your drawer? That works nicely for a handle since the grain of the wood is all consistent. If not, you can put anything in for a handle, a dowel, a screw, a nail, a pull from the hardware store, a hole, you name it, just get that drawer open somehow. That is up to you. Once all the pieces are glued up, just sand up the body of the drawer so it fits nicely in the body. Once that is good, apply your finish. Be careful not to put too much in the dra...
By subscribing to the RSS feed you will be notified when new entries are posted on this blog.
