A Birthday Box

This was my first attempt at a box as well as at doing inlay work.

My wife had a birthday coming up and I wanted to make her something special. I had a piece of maple left over from the entertainment center and some walnut from a different project so thought this would be nice to make with it.

I milled down the maple to 1/2” thickness, measured her Bible and added 1/2”which gave me the inside dimensions of the box then went from there. I mitered the corners of the box to 45 degrees and glued it up square. I then glued up panels to make the top and bottom of the box 1” larger so that there would be a bit of an over hang to make it look like a book. Rounded over the edges and got out my chisels and started the inlay of the cross. I cut the inlay 3/16” deep and made the walnut strips 1/8” wide to be able to sand it all flush. Once that was done I had some walnut left over so made a jig and did the splines for the miters. Next I glued it all up and then sanded everything to 320 grit and then did a hand rubbed “True Oil” finish, took about 5 or 6 coats to get the depth of finish I wanted. lastly I gave it 3 coats of a paste wax. I gave it to her yesterday and she loved it.

-- Docopac (a carpenter in a different medium)