The 2 hinged ‘roof’ pieces are now in place and this gives an idea of the various storage areas. The small triangular piece in the top unit is the access to the second hiding place.

The door hinges on a dowel through an elongated hole in the door. I had thought a straight hole through would do the trick but neglected to realize that as the door pivoted open, it also had to drop down as well or it would not open.

With the door open you can now see the face of the hidden box as well as the sliding mechanism used to unlock the hidden drawer compartment below.

The hidden box is slide part way out and is designed to be completely removed.

And this is the final product after 5 coats of sprayed urethane with 1500 wet sanding between coats. All in all it was a very rewarding project as I had never designed and built such a complex (for me anyway) piece before.

Hope you enjoyed the blog. For more pictures of the finished product please see the project page.

The mechanism is dowels protruding through elongated holes that engage the wooden tabs on the drawer below. The combination is slide left to open, right to lock.

The sliding lock is now in place. The long box with the dowel handle is destined to become Secret Compartment #2.

The crown is now set in place. This was by far the most difficult piece to design and has the usual ‘oooops’ and ‘oh $hytes’ incorporated into it.

Another view showing the symmetry and the second of the two necklace compartments. Not that easy to see as the roof has not been installed and the compartments are only about 1 1/4 inches deep.

These are the wooden hinges fabricated for the necklace compartment covers. They are 7 1/2 long and made from Thai Padoo wood as I felt the rosewood was a bit too soft and prone to breaking. These were made using a small jig on the router table and center drilled with the Incra Hingecrafter and a 6” bit. The wooden hinge learning curve is still pretty steep but each time the final product is a bit better.

This is the basic final product with all basic pieces in place but not fastened or hinges installed. It was disassembled for a long session of sanding and drawer fitting before being permanently assembled.

Stay tuned for the combination to the second Secret Compartment…...............

The angle of the sides has decreased in line with the wat roofline. As a result the sides could not be used as a drawer guide so runners have been installed that also act as drawer stops to ensure the closed drawer is flush.

Due to the ‘narrowing’ of the second tier, a single drawer was built with 3 compartments.

The 2 small tabs protruding from the rear compartment are the stops that prevent access to the rear compartment unless you know the combination. This is secret compartment #1.

The completed 2nd level (actually the 3rd level if you count the base)

Now on to the pinnacle….................

This is the picture used to develop the basic form of a jewelry box for the our eldest daughter in an effort to send her a taste of Thailand and try to alleviate some of that guilt.

Her choice of wood was rosewood which is readily available here and while it is by no means cheap it is not near the price you pay stateside. The entire piece is solid rosewood with the exception of the wooden hinges which are Thai Padoo.

What follows is a series of pics showing the assembly procedure as the box was built in stages from the base.

This is the base piece up-side-down and shows the supports that were added to the side panels when I realized that this was going to be a heavy piece (20+ lbs) and I did not feel comfortable with all the stress placed on the angled side pieces. The assembly was with good old Elmer’s Carpenter glue and doweled with a Dowelmax. The versatility of the D’max continues to amaze me.

The drawer guides was a wood strip glued in place for the center guide. The drawers were built to a close tolerance which was intended to have the outside edge of the drawers guided by the sides of the box. I ended up doing a lot of fine tuning at the end to get the drawers to slide freely with no binding because the tolerances were too close for the twists and bows that rosewood can have. The small triangle pieces are the drawer stops to make sure they would be flush when closed.

The drawers where dado’d together and the pulls were designed to follow the basic outline of the overall piece. ‘Sissy bars’ were added to the back end of the drawers to keep them from tipping down when pulled out to access the rear compartment.

On to the second floor…................................