Hazel's box

A box made as a thank you present for someone who has been helping me at work.

The sides are spalted elm with a waney edge and worm holes; kiln drying should have seen off the worms. The ends, legs and top are walnut. Base is plywood. The piece is part fixed with beech pegs, which I now wish I’d made smaller and from a slightly softer timber.

Generally the construction is mortise and tenon glued up with epoxy resin adhesive (taking no chances). The pegs were used due to the difficulty of glueing onto end grain, particularly as the elm’s spalting had gone just a little too far and the timber kept crumbling away. The hidden hinges are just dowel. A marking gauge and no 4 plane with back up from a block plane was used to form the panel style relief on the lid.

Finish is Danish oil cut bcak with wire wool and wax polished. The piece was supposed to be more ‘rustic’ than it is, so I’ve effectively spoilt it against my original concept by over finishing. Oh well – I still think that it looks ok!

Another challenging piece that was enjoyable to make and from which I have learnt a lot. I hope that Hazel likes it.

-- Stanley generally struggling