Valentine's Bandsaw Box

I really didn’t want to make a traditional heart-shaped box—and I’ve always wanted to try making a bandsaw box. (This was a first for me.) What makes this a Valentine’s Box is that I filled it with candy and gave it to my wife for a Valentine’s Day present.

Building it was interesting. I dug through my scraps and laminated a few pieces together. But not just any scraps. They all came from lumber that I’d used to build something else in our home—so each piece had a special meaning to us. I used ambrosia maple for the front & back and the center pieces are hard maple, makore, sycamore, and black walnut.

After deciding on the shape (kinda similar to other bandsaw boxes I’ve seen), I started cutting. If I’ve learned nothing else, I’ve learned how to make a deep bandsaw cut (this box is about 5” thick) and keep the cut fairly smooth. Now, that doesn’t mean the cuts on this box were smooth. Quite the contrary. They were scalloped like crinkle-cut french fries. I had tons of sanding to do to get this completed. But I knew I’d used a good blade and that my bandsaw was in reasonable shape. That only left one possibility—my technique. While waiting for glue to set and the finish to dry, I was cutting every scrap I could get my hands on to figure out how to keep the cut smooth. The secret was in a remark made by some unnamed LJ who said something like, “Don’t force it, let the bandsaw do the work.” I decided this meant I should slow down—and by golly, it worked! By dramatically slowing down how fast I fed the wood into the blade, I was able to achieve the mythical smooth bandsaw cut—which, it turns out, is no longer mythical—to me anyway.

I finished it with clear, brush-on laquer.

-- Howard - "A bad day in the workshop is still better than a good day at the office."