| Blog series by YorkshireStewart | updated 1978 days ago | 4 parts | 7035 reads | 72 comments total |
Part 1: Preparing the Way
I’d been living with this board of burr / burl or pippy oak in the workshop for five or six years and must have picked it up and put it back down at least a hundred times (approx!). I have done quite a few boxes in the past with lids something like this: but I always intended that this piece would be used in a different way, and for something a little bit special. Though I’ve made many boxes, I have never thought of doing one for me, so this challenge presents an opportunity. ...
Part 2: It all hinges on these..
I have a love affair with wooden hinges and this challenge gave me the opportunity to go one step further with them. (It started some years ago when I came across the work of the late Tim Stead – in my opinion, a genius.) Accurately drilling the hinge pin hole in such a hinge is never easy, and those I planned for this box are 9.5” long and therefore impossible to drill. The following is an attempt to show how I overcame this bit of the challenge. The first shot shows the oak blan...
Part 3: towards the finish...
As I wrote earlier, I’d jointed the box corners using the Lock Mitre Router Bit in the router table. I mentioned that I’d set it up by way of trial and error. That prompted me today to do a Google on the topic & I came up with this helpful website. Anyhow, with those joints, there should be no need for any reinforcement, but the box itself, before polishing, did seem a bit plain, especially when set against the lid. I wanted a change from the ‘slip feathers’ / mitre keys that I’ve f...
Part 4: ..finishing touches.
Here are one or two pictures of the dovetail joints that hold the two inner trays together. It’s years since I did hand-cut dovetails (1962 to be precise – last year of high school!). But a challenge is a challenge. They were too tiny to worry about measuring angles, especially with my vari-focal specs, so I did them by eye. I ‘nailed’ the partition with tiny pegs cut from the bog oak, hammered into pre-drilled holes. It seemed to work pretty well. ...
