Well it’s confession time.

I’ve made no secret about being a committed Christian. (That shouldn’t be confused with a Christian who has been committed. LOL)

I foolishly volunteered to build and manage our churches website. I say foolishly, because I knew nothing about doing so, other than I’ve been very impressed with Martin’s work here in building this great site.

I was given no money for this project, so I was forced to work with some very basic tools. After a lot of time consuming effort, the site was launched this week and though it doesn’t have any of the fancy pops & whistles of a well funded site, I’m fairly happy with the results.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few months.

NOW HERE’S WHERE YOU CAN DO ME A FAVOR.

Rather than click on the link above, would you please click on the web address next to my signature below this post. I need to boost the viewership of the site to raise its profile with search engines.

Doesn’t that beat all – a Christian trying to ‘cheat’ the system. LOL

ONE MORE THING

Is there any LumberJock out there that would be willing to write some HTML code? I would like to enable the header to refresh to a different image every time one clicks on a new page? I’ve been quoted $250 for this, but have no budget.

If you have the skill-set and are willing to help, please send me a private message and I’ll give you access to the site and send you the graphic files.

Thanks!

Martin, if you want to delete this post because it hardly fits a woodworking site – no worries Mate!

I note on my calendar that 365 days ago I joined LumberJocks. This post makes 2501 entries very few of which have occurred in the past two months. I’m still visiting, and reading with interest about all the great projects. Since I’ve become inactive here, there have been many new members and some great small wooden boxes. I case you thought that my love for small wooden boxes has diminished, let me say again … I just love them!

I have a few projects that will be completed early next year, so will not be active here until I earn the right to do so by showing that I still do some woodworking.

Have a great Christmas everyone – and whilst you are enjoying this special season remember the greatest Christmas gift of all was God’s son, Jesus.

Here’s a photographic record of that day four years ago.

In this episode, I have finished the wood with a three coat shellac base and a light sanding with very fine wet & dry between each coat, and then four coats of sprayed clear lacquer, again rubbing out each coat including the final coat. (I should also mention that I had previously pre-finished the body and lid of the box using burnishing oil and a ROS as per Rob's instructions.)

Even though the instructions with the lacquer state that I should wait 20 minutes between each coat, I like to wait more like three hours in a 72 degree room. I find it gives each coat more time to cure and makes the rubbing out process more effective. If you do this too soon, it’s possible to cut through the hard surface skin and dig into the softer uncured finish making a real mess. I didn’t take any pictures of applying the finish, I thought it would be like watching grass grow.

The pictures here show the box with the final coat of spray before rubbing out and applying a coat of traditional wax polish. When I post this in my projects page, you will see the effect of applying the wax.

Now for the fiddly details.

This picture shows how I lay out the material for a padded interior insert which will sit under the lower dividers. I’m using a faux suede with a thin layer of padding mounted to a cardboard backing. The padding gives the suede a plush feel. The backing board is cut 1mm shorter than the inside dimensions of the base to allow for the material, yet making a snug fit.

I spray a coat of adhesive to the backing board and press the material against the sticky surface which holds it in place.

The finished padded insert.

This shot shows the lower divider with a ring-role. The ring role is made from a piece of high density foam cut exactly to the size of the compartment. This is then slotted (cut almost all the way through with an X-acto knife. I spray this with an adhesive then stuff the suede into the slots. If you try this, remember to cut the material to more than twice the surface dimensions of the foam. The excess material is folded and stuffed into a cavity below the ring-roll. I added a retainer in the bottom of this compartment to hide the untidy look of the underside of the ring-roll (not that anyone would see it).

The following one shows how this is retained in place. You will also note that I have applied two felt pads to the back rail of the lower dividers to keep it snuggly in place.

Here’s the box with the padded insert and the lower dividers in place. If you look closely, you will notice four rare earth magnets have been installed; two in the outer corners of the lid and two in the corresponding surface in the front corners of the box.

[I took some pictures of the hinge installation, but somehow these failed to record to my flash card, so a brief description.] The hinges are Brusso, 11/4” x 7/16” from Lee Valley. Brusso make the finest box ‘jewelry’ available. It makes little sense to me to spend hours on a box only to spoil it with cheap big-box hardware.

I used a router set-up for my Dremel. I first scribed the outline of the hinge with a sharp knife after carefully measuring the location on the box walls. The Dremel was hand held as I cut out the hinge mortise gently easing the bit up to the scribed line. The scribing reduces any chip-out. Then I cleaned out the mortises with a sharp chisel. Next, I inserted the hinges into the mortise and positioned and clamped the lid in place. I then scored a nick with the tip of my knife where the hinges met the lid and repeated the above steps using the ‘nicks’ as a reference point.

Here’s a hint; when you install hinges, it looks tidier to have all the screws lined up with the slots pointing in the same direction. Always drill a pilot hole. Because brass screws are relatively soft, it’s all too easy to twist the head off the shaft. To prevent this happening, I pre-thread the hole using a steel screw of the same size and thread. I wax the screw which makes it easier to drive home, and lubricates the thread being cut into the wood. Then I remove the steel screw and drive in the brass screw, also with some wax applied. When lining up the screw head, use care not to turn the screw too far into the hole for the sake of alignment. You will run the risk of snapping the head off. It’s better to go just tight enough and back off a quarter turn to align the slots, rather than too far and breaking the screw.

You will notice that the screw in the lower left is not perfectly centered. This is not easy to correct, but can be by drilling out the hole and inserting a hardwood dowel glued in place, then re-drilled. The problem with this is you are drilling into end-grain. Perhaps a better but more difficult fix is to cut a mortise and insert a piece of wood so you are drilling into face grain. Or you can do what I did; nothing.

This shows one of the upper trays sitting on the lower divider rails.

And still another with both trays in place. The second tray doesn’t have the padded insert installed. You can see that I decided to cover the 3mm MDF base of the trays with more American Maple veneer to keep the forces the same on both sides of the bottom of the trays. (The trays started to warp a little and I put this down to the fact that I had originally applied the Maple veneer to only the underside surface.)

Almost finished.

When I read this comment in my last episode in this series, it caused me pause. What Bill was describing was exactly my experience; small errors compounding each other until the divider grid was nowhere near perfect. I don’t know if Bill could observe these errors or just being honest about his own experience.

However, as I hold him in high esteem as a box maker, I decided to re-make my divider grid. And to be honest about this second attempt, it was no more successful. There it was again, not quite perfect, joints that didn’t quite fit, and segments that were out of square. Now I’m not talking about large errors, in fact they were so small, I couldn’t photograph them for this blog – when I tried, they didn’t show.

Some of my best wood working is done in bed. I normally fall asleep at night thinking about my current project. Often I rehearse in my mind the steps I need to take next in a project. That’s when it occurred to me. It I cut all of the half-lap dadoes at the same time with each like piece ganged up against the next, make one pass over the dado blade, move to the next cut, (ie. notch), then each would have to line up with the next. So that’s exactly what I did and it worked.

Below I have lined up all of the component parts for the lower dividers to test for fit and accuracy.

I still found it easy to make a mistake during assembly, because, although each piece in theory was the same end for end, I found in practice this wasn’t quite the case. A discrepancy of .025mm is enough to throw things out and that is the kind of mismatch I’m talking about when you flip a piece end for end – not much, but enough to spoil a good fit.

To avoid this, I drew arrows and made notes on the bottom of each piece. I needed to be certain that the advantage gained by cutting all of the dadoes together wasn’t lost by inadvertently swapping one piece end for end.

Close-up showing markings to avoid confusion.

The fit is so exact and snug, I only glued up the perimeter pieces.

Here’s the third and final attempt. If I do say so myself, it’s a perfect fit, and absolutely square at all intersections of the dividers.

Here I continue with the dividers that will create the lower level compartments. There are twelve components to the lower dividers. They are tedious to make requiring patience and care to keep everything square. My intention is to eventually glue this grid-work up and insert as one piece. The reason for this that the bottom of the tray will be lined with fabric. Therefore, it’s imperative that the dividers can be easily removed so the fabric liner can be cleaned or replaced.

Here the dividers are dry assembled and checked for squareness.

In this picture I’ve inserted them into the box (still not glued) to check for fit. In the previous episode in this group, Cajunpen Bill asked how I intended to suspend the upper shelf trays. You can see from this picture that the front and rear dividers are taller that the rest of the dividers. These serve as rails for the trays to ride on. The long compartment at the front of the box (and barely visible) is for necklaces. The other slightly larger compartment will be where the ring rolls are installed. (That detail in another episode.)

Finally, here you can see the trays and lower components in place. The handles of the tray are curved and extend into the cavity created by the lid panel, otherwise, the lid would not close.

In the picture above, you can see where I’ve contoured the front of the box to make it easy to grasp the lid.

Today I worked on the small details of the trays.

The longer I make boxes the more I realize that it’s the small details that distinguish a well made box. Unlike larger furniture pieces, boxes beg to be picked up and examined closely and in detail. There is no such thing as a hidden back or bottom; all surfaces need to be treated with equal importance.

The series of pictures below show the attention I pay to the trays.

These trays are made up of nine pieces; 4 sides, three dividers and a two part laminated bottom.

The bottom is a Maple veneer I cut on my band-saw. It is laminated to 3mm MDF for stability. The Maple shows on the bottom of the tray. The MDF will take a laminated pad which I will show in another episode of this series.

This is the bottom of the tray showing the Maple veneer.

Here I am setting up to scribe an arc for the handles. I use my Bessey Clamps and a thin strip of wood to form the arc which I copy directly to the wood and then cut on my band-saw.

This picture shows the tray components after cutting the arc, rounding over the top edges and cutting a half-lap joint using my dado blades for a precise fit.

Finally the assembled tray with the dividers dry fitted. It’s probably too hard to pick it, but I have made an allowance for the thickness of the padded lining that will be installed in the bottom of the tray. When that is done, the dividers will match the sides of the tray perfectly.

There are two of these trays. The lower dividers and rail supports for the tray will be made next.

A beautiful joint with no end-grain showing and really simple – right? NO!

Well the first part is right – they are attractive, but making a good miter joint is not as easy as it looks. And they get more difficult than just matching two 45 degree cuts together – there’s the compound miter joint that introduces another angel, or the mitered dovetail joint, and many other variations – all difficult to make.

I can always make a three-sided picture frame with perfect miter joints – it’s adding that fourth side where everything can go pear-shaped.

The problem is one of compound errors. What looks to the eye like a perfect 45 degrees, may actually be 45.05 degrees, or 44.95 degrees. Three pieces fit together well, but when you add the fourth piece you see you are out by .15 degrees.

If you can’t get your saw set up perfectly, there is hope. Make a sled with a 90 degree block split by the saw blade as close to 45 degrees both sides as possible. If you are out on one side by a little, you will be out on the other side by a compensating amount. Keep track of your pieces, mark them A & B cuts and make sure that you fit an A cut to a B cut all the way around.

Result? A PERFECT MITER CUT FRAME!

I worked in the shop last Wednesday, and took some pictures showing the installation of the splines in the spline slots shown in my previous episode of Making a Small Wooden Box. Unfortunately, my photo card was corrupted, so I lost all of those pictures.

Today, I will show you the continuation of making the lid and a start on one of the trays.

David has done a great job of showing veneering, so I don’t plan to go into any details on that here. This picture shows my lid panel ‘sandwich’ being glued up in my manual vacuum press. If you look very closely, you will see two cauls that make up the ‘bread’ of the sandwich, in between which is a layer of veneer, 3mm MDF and another layer of veneer. I left the sandwich in the press overnight.

Now I move on to the tray components. I plan to install fixed dividers in the bottom layer of the box interior. The dividers will serve as the shelf to hold two smaller trays in the top layer. I’ve chosen American Maple with a slight ‘bird’s eye’ affect. The trays will be lined with velvet and one or two compartments will feature ring holders. (Pictures of these in a few more episodes.)

Below are the tray-sides cut ready for additional milling. The saw blade has left some burns, but these will be removed during sanding.

The next two close-ups show one of the ways I use the Grrr-Ripper. I commented in Dick's blog about this tool that I find invaluable for milling small box pieces. The first picture shows the tray side being passed by a round-over bit on my router table and the second shows me cutting a rebate for the tray bottom on the tablesaw. I can’t think of a safer way to do this. You might note that the piece is ‘trapped’ between the fence of the router table and the bottom ‘stabilizer plate’ of the Gripper. It can’t go anywhere. Also, the side of the gripper is registered against the Router Table Fence, not the work-piece. This prevents ‘snipe’ from occurring which is the bane of milling small pieces on the Router Table.

The picture below shows the veneered panel inserted into the lid frame and the tray being glued up. (Please excuse the focus.)

I tend to pre-finish my boxes with Pure Tung Oil as I progress. I find this much easier than trying to reach into awkward corners and contending with a flapping hinged lid. I need to take care that I don’t apply any oil to surfaces that will be glued.

Below are two more pictures of the box. Hinges will not be applied until the last stage of making this box.

Add another 12 hours of shop time.

I know this is a fairly slow pace, but remember, each step is only performed once or a few times. This is not production run stuff, so one has to carefully think through each step, measure twice and cut once. The old adage, ‘haste makes waste’ is very applicable to woodworking, and sometimes a mistake means starting all over because of stock limitations, etc. For example, I have no more of the primary wood used in the box. Mess up now, and it would force me to start all over with a different wood.