Project Information
Dovetail box number seven in my recent box making venture.
I'm calling this one "Knotty but Nice".
It is custom fit with inserts to hold my routers and the various cutters and components that come with them. It is made of poplar and pine and the insert is made of American Cedar. I had a hard time with the finish on this one. I ended up using very diluted provencial minwax stain mixed with mineral spirits and minwax poly. The stain really "pitted" the poplar, maybe I should have used a sealing coat first, maybe next time. I followed that with amber shellac and then Johnson's Paste Wax.
I left the cedar insert unfinished. I did that because I am curious if the cedar will absorb moisture the way it is used to absorb moisture from humidors. I started a post about this because I really wanted some feedback from everyone here and I got great replies. Here is a link to that post
Cedar Inserts for Preventing Rust
UPDATE!!! I went back and sealed the insert with poly and JPW. Unfinished cedar is corrosive to iron. Thanks to Lazyman and Swirt for sharing that info with me… read the update below.
I think I have set my tools up for rust by accident in the past by tossing in those little silica bead packets to absorb moisture. In an airtight container that would work but in a tool drawer or non-air tight box/chest they absorb the moisture from outside of the box/drawer and then slowly release it into the drawer. I think.
Anyway…. the untreated cedar inserts may do the same thing but I am hoping they will not. I am using CRC 3-36 to treat my tools and JPW. I also bought some ZeRust Plastabs that I will be trying in this box and some other recently built chisel boxes.
Thanks for everyone's thoughts on that Cedar Insert post. If this does not work the way I intend for it to work, then I will take the insert out and seal it with polyurathane.
Thanks for looking.
Jon