First, I didn’t intentionally rip you off, Andy.

I’ve seen sculpted boxes and furniture, and they always intrigued me. I made the base of this box from curly maple, the top from bloodwood and wenge. The open grain of the wenge was filled with multiple coats of shellac. The final finish is Deft spray semi-gloss lacquer rubbed out with 0000 steel wool and paste wax.

I intended to build it with wooden hinges, but I got ahead of myself and forgot until it was too late. Hence the drop-in top with African blackwood knob. The size is 9×6 x 3 7/8.

Thanks for looking.

I’m still teaching myself how work with wood and wanted to make a box with dovetails. I have some cypress which is very light and easy to work, but it turned out to be too fragile for dovetails; the pins broke easily. So I built a box joint jig for the tablesaw and it worked just fine. The box is 16 1/4×8 5/8 x 8 3/4 inches. I put a band of 1/8 inch bloodwood around the top (I disremember why, even though I just built it last week!). Finished with four coats of amber shellac, then paste wax.

I hope to make a full-size blanket chest in the near future. In the meantime, I’ll practice my hand-cut dovetail skills on cherry.