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Haven't posted any projects in a bit, but here is one from Santa's workshop.

Cherry toy box with solid brass hardware and the requested soft close hinge to protect little fingers and puppy dog noses!

I'm starting to get used to finishing cherry. Its a joy to work with machine wise, but care is needed in the finishing end.

Thanks for looking

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A great 'treasure ' chest of the little one's keepsakes. Nice job and very good idea using soft closing hinges, I need to keep that in mind for my next 'toy box' project.

Happy Holidays,
Douglas in Thailand
 

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Great project, destine to become an heirloom.
I started making them for my kids and then the grandkids.
I tried to make each grandkids of a different type of wood but when my stepson kept having more kids I told him he had to stop because I was running out of unique wood for each child's box. LOL
 

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Cato, great project.

Can you explain the issue with finishing cherry and how you overcame it? Thanks.
 

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Hazem,
to finish the cherry I used a wiping varnish of mixed 50/50 of spar urethane and mineral spirits for several coats, allowing each coat to dry overnight. Then I used a couple coats of dewaxed garnet shellac in a 1.5 lb. cut. I allowed about an hour between coats of the shellac. I let the shellac cure overnight and then put a coat of Bison natural polish on and when it dried I buffed it out.

I did this because cherry has a tendency to blotch and its easy to see if your boards will blotch by wetting them with mineral spirits. I did check my boards out this way because they had some figured grain to them and sure enough they were going to blotch if any strong amount of dye or toner was applied. I tested out several scraps with different finish and tone options and decided that the homemade wiping varnish and shellac were the most pleasing, plus the cherry will darken over time naturally anyway.

Cato, great project.

Can you explain the issue with finishing cherry and how you overcame it? Thanks.

- Hazem
 
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