Carved Candle Box

This candle box is carved out of American Walnut. The stock was resawn from a 1 1/2” thick plank and planed down to 3/8”. The sides are rabbeted and pinned. The pins aren’t entirely visible in the photos, but the sides were two thin for dowels, so I ended up using bamboo skewers for the pins—which fit almost perfectly into 1/8” holes. (I destroyed part of the back of the box figuring this out and had to chisel out the destroyed portions and patch them.) The bottom is a raised panel that floats in a dado. Inside the box at one end is a small till to hold matches; it is also walnut, planed down to 1/8” inch and also floating in dados.

All work was done with hand tools except the initial resaw on a bandsaw.

The sides are “strapwork” carving in a flower motif inspired by this posting by Peter Follansbee, bordered below by running braid pattern similar to my chisel plane. The lid repeats both motifs, although the flower pattern is carved in a low relief style and the border appears both above and below. The background texture was punched with a nail set. (Yes, it was tedious! I have yet to make a texture punch I’m happy with…)

Walnut is often recommended as a good American carving wood, but I found it a little challenging in places.

The box was finished with linseed oil and multiple coats of shellac. It isn’t as shiny in person as it seems in the photos, but I’m probably going to do some more work to make the finish more matte.