Walnut Jewelry Box

This jewelry box was my first commissioned piece as well as my first venture into solid-wood, woodworking. In spite of this, the project went very well, aside from a few set backs and mistakes.

The box was made for a friend, and fellow designer’s, wife. I was given complete design control so I started with some rough sketches and eventually completed a digital rendering. After that was approved we discussed price. Since this was my first piece and I couldn’t give the customer much of a guarantee on the quality we started fairly low. This was fine with me since I figured he was taking a bit of a chance.

I started with approx. 9’ of walnut and a half sheet of 1/8” baltic birch. I rough cut all of the pieces and milled them to their final thickness. I then moved on to the joinery using keyed mitres for the back corners and mortise and tennons for the front. The drawer was made with simple rabbets on the back and stopped dadoes on the front.

I sanded the whole box down to 180 grit and finished with Tung Oil, rubbing with fine steel wool between coats.

Both my friend and his wife couldn’t be happier with the box, so I guess it was a success. Thanks for reading!

P.S. I’d just like to thank James for taking a chance on me with this project and I hope it lasts for years.

-- Blair