"Dragon Box"

I’ve seen another LJ do a variation of this plan perhaps a month or two ago. It comes from Woodsmith Magazine Vol 29, No. 174. I liked it so much I cut parts for 6 different versions using different combinations of wood. This is one of two that I’ve finished thus far. Each one I plan to use as gifts and make them unique. This one was for my niece, Hannah….thus the “H” inlay in the top. It was a surrprise birthday gift which I shipped to her since we live in different parts of the midwest.. She’s in high school now, but even when she was very young she liked to draw things. Some time ago I asked her mother (my sister) if Hannah had a favorite drawing back from when she was quite young. So one day my sister sat down with her and asked her to go through her drawings and pick out one she really liked for “her mother’s scrapbook”.

My sister then sent me a copy of the “dragon” drawing which she picked out. I woodburned the drawing into the inside of the lid, after duplicating it freehand in pencil.

The top, front and back are curly maple. The front and back are joined to the sides using mortise/tenon joinery (the plan calls for dowels, but that’s no fun). The tenons are approximately ¼ inch by 2 inches by ¼ deep. The sides are African Shedua. The base is hickory and is tongue and grooved into all four sides of the box. The “H” inlay is Caribbean Rosewood. The finish is 10 coats of satin oil/poly blend with progressively finer sanding between each several coats. This filled in nearly all the grain. The last coat was sanded at 1500 grit followed by hand rubbing using Behlens buffer‘s polish.

The thank you voice message I received the next day from Hannah and the picture I was sent later with a huge surprise on her face when she first opened the lid made it all more than worth it.

-- Martin, Kansas