I can’t believe I didn’t post this sooner. So life goes…
I made this as a wedding gift for a couple of my friends. It’s made of Figured Narra, also known as Amboyna when it’s in burl form. It’s based on the same principle of construction as described here.
I learned this technique firsthand from Scott Phillips when he spent a day at my hardwood dealer. I was in the front row, no more than an arms reach away from him most of the time!!! What a great guy!

This box was really special, because it turned into FOUR NESTING BOXES!! I initially meant this box to be a recipe holder for the newlyweds, but I just couldn’t stop making boxes once I started…
The inside of each box and all the inner boxes are finished with Zinsser Seal Coat shellac and the outside box is finished with Seal Coat followed by a coat of Satin wipe-on Poly (Minwax).

See my first bandsaw box also.

Saturday September 6, 2008 I went to Wood Expo 2008 at L. L. Johnson Lumber Mfg. Co. and Johnson's Workbench in Charlotte, MI.

I GOT TO MEET SCOTT PHILLIPS (of The American Woodshop on PBS) for the second year in a row!! I sat in the front row and was no more than an arm’s reach from him most of the time. WOW!! Scott is truly just as he appears on his show: a cheerful, enthusiastic, down-to-earth, and just plain NICE guy who knows tons of things about woodworking. SCOTT EVEN PERSONALLY SHARPENED MY POCKET KNIFE FOR ME as he demonstrated some sharpening techniques on the DMT DuoSharp stone!!

He made three or four boxes on the bandsaw that he called “Puzzle Boxes”. He took a block of wood and cut every side so that it was concave. Then he ‘slabbed off’ the piece he wanted to be the bottom, cut a ‘key’ out of one corner of the box, and after sliding the key up out of the majority of the piece, he cut a sliding top. Then the core of the box was cut out with the cut starting and ending in the key pocket. The bottom got glued back on with super glue and accelerator, and a quick coat of spray-on poly was added. The key makes sure the sliding top won’t fall off until you remove the key itself. Pretty Cool!!

When I got home, I tried making my own from a gorgeous piece of Bloodwood I had just got in the mail.
Here are the results (with sanding to 180 grit and one coat of Zinsser Seal Coat Shellac):

11/12/08 HERE’S HOW TO MAKE IT!!

Here’s the link (so you don’t have to break your neck trying to read it!!):
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff119/alanealane/howtomakeabandsawbox-2.gif

This is a table I came up with when a buddy gave me some end-grain slabs of black walnut from a downed tree on his property. The only thing I could think to do with them was use them for table tops. This table uses the first of two pieces I received.

The belt sander didn’t work too well (even with 24 grit zirconia belts) because the wood is so HARD. I got one side mostly flat with the belt sander, but there were still some chainsaw gouges in it. So I made a frame from 2” wide strips of melamine mdf. I mounted my router to a board that would sit across the top of the frame, and I used a 1/2” straight bit to ‘surface’ the other side of the slab so that it was flattened. I was NOT going to run end grain that tough through my planer. At that time the planer still had straight knives, not the helical cutterhead.

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I made the legs out of some more walnut I was given by an instructor way back in my high school days. The walnut is sandwiched between some Curly Aniegre. I had no idea what to do for the legs’ shape, so I watched some episodes of The American Woodshop to see what Scott Phillips did with some of his tables. I decided to use a very modified Queen Anne style to the legs.
...Therefore the title of this project: “Rust-egant?? Ele-rustic??”
What would you call it (other than a hunk of firewood… ;-D)? I find it to be an odd yet pleasing combination.

I made a template from melamine coated hardboard, refined the design until I liked it, and cut out the legs. BIG MISTAKE TO CUT OUT THE LEGS BEFORE DECIDING ON HOW TO ATTACH THEM TO THE TABLE. I decided on sliding dovetails, which I did not photograph, because they ended up serving as function only, not form. I don’t need to tell you how dicey that was cutting sliding dovetails on the router table after the legs were already shaped!!! I do still have all my flesh and fingers… but DON’T TRY IT!

I made the column as a triangular prism, and cut it on the tablesaw with the blade set at 60 degrees (WOOHOO for left-tilt saws!!). It is made of scrap White Ash left over from cutting out the body of my bass guitar.
Oh, and the top is attached with a double-ended lag bolt. What are those things called again…?

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Here is a closer look at the Aniegre/Walnut/Aniegre laminated legs.

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The finish took me the longest time to complete to my satisfaction. I consulted The Wood Whisperer about how to give the bark a flat finish and the top surface a gloss finish. He suggested I mask the top, apply a flat finish to the bark first, and then put gloss on the top. The gloss polyurethane dripped down the bark quite a lot, but it cured mostly with the same flat finish of the initial coat of flat lacquer.
I am very novice when it comes to applying a good finish, especially brushing, which is what I did to this table. The top has went through about 12 coats of polyurethane, all sanded back down to bare wood to seal most of the end-grain pores (as well as to get rid of numerous mistakes…like bubbles and finishing in a dusty shop).
I finally put on two coats of Zinsser Seal Coat shellac, and a final coat of Gloss Poly (straight from a fresh can) and it turned out very well. I popped bubbles by tapping a corner of my brush GENTLY into them and holding a very small halogen desk lamp over the area to quickly cause the finish to flow level.

...Whew!! I’m glad it’s done… ;-D

I finally got some pictures of the custom bass I made for myself. The body is locally harvested (Michigan) White Ash. The neck is Mahogany with a tiny bit of Cherry in the headstock, and the fingerboard is Striped Ebony. The rear coverplate is quartersawn Cherry. It is quite heavy because of the ash, but sounds GREAT! It sounds very much like a double (upright) bass. I love the strings—they are called “tape-wound”strings, and won’t corrode—I use GHS brand strings exclusively because they are excellent quality and are made in Battle Creek, MI—that’s pretty close to home. The pickups are dual-coil humbucker Jazz Bass pickups. I have a volume control for each pickup, and one tone control shared between both.

HEAR A SAMPLE OF IT HERE.

The headstock was possibly the hardest part of the instrument as far as design goes. I wanted it to be as small as possible, look good, and still fit my tuners and the cover plate for the truss rod. I carved the neck with wood rasps and spokeshaves. The neck was finished with pre-cat lacquer and the fingerboard was finished with—you won’t believe it…......OLIVE OIL rubbed in by hand. The body of the bass has four coats of 100% tung oil (imagine how long that took to dry!!) and four coats of clear gloss Polyurethane.

I am a true believer in showing the natural beauty of the wood that God gave us to enjoy. I rarely stain wood. Here are some Pictures of this gorgeous instrument…the Ash is really nicely figured.











Notice that the guitar body is made from ONE board of Ash. I planed and sanded the boards to thickness, cut the pieces to length, and glued two pairs of boards face-to-face to get the thickness, and then I edge glued each ‘half’ to get the width I needed (I made sure on the front of the bass, that the sapwood came together on the centerline of the guitar to give a nice blend from one side to the other, with no visible glue line). The end grain on the bottom of the bass has a cool Herringbone pattern from the rift-sawed part of the boards.

I will post a clip of one of my studio recordings with this bass later. The recording was made with standard stainless round-wound strings, but they were cutting into the Ebony fingerboard, so I changed them to tape-wounds.

Keep an eye out for my instruments to appear on Ebay. I’d like to try to get a market for these fine instruments going online. I’ll keep ya posted. Thanks for looking!!