Poplar brush holder with box joints from my jig... and my first dye job

Making this box was an interesting journey. I downloaded sketchup in order to mock up ideas for my new kitchen… but took a small sidestep to see if I could sketch a small teabox that Rah had posted. That ended up in having to create a box joint jig (posted here: http://lumberjocks.com/projects/22112 ).

I finally tested it out properly and am so pleased with that jig. This was just a test. I had planed down some poplar to 1 cm thick and the box joint jig was set up to make a 1 cm box joint. Thanks to the folks who posted responses to my blog. I would have never thought of poplar.

I decided since it was just a test box, I would experiment with finish. The first pic is with a flash, so the color I used to finish looks brighter than reality. The other four pics are closer to the truth.

For the finishing, I first made up my shellac (1/2 cup of super blonde shellac flakes with 500 ml of denatured alcohol). I think the mix is full strength – what you call 1 lb cut? That took about 24 hours to fully dissolve even though I shook and shook. Then I bought myself some pigment (it’s called “Mars Violet”) and mixed 1/2 cup of the shellac with 1 tbsp of the pigment. I just swooshed it around a bit and it looked ready. I used an artist’s paintbrush – ie. something you would use for watercolors – to brush it on. It goes on like a dream. There was a small patch that did not want to take at first but I waited a few minutes and touched it up. It worked like a charm. After 24 hours of drying I put on a few coats of exterior varnish. I am going to keep my glue brushes in it.

The third and last pictures – I call them my money shots. I can’t believe that this box is square. And the joints are decent. I see some more projects with box joints in the future. Or more jigs.