My First Hidden Hinge Bandsaw Box, False Bottom with a Twist literally! ya have to click to see

That's such beautiful wood. You add that to your skill and designs, it makes for an awesome box.

Keep pushin the emvelope or should we say the box…lol! Like the continuity of the pattern. pretty subtle. nice piece!

Wow, great box. The spalted hackberry is amazing. Great design too.

OH WOW!!! What a nice looking box that is!!!! Nice work Blackie!!!

great work
and beautiful wood

the tray 'key' is genius !

That spalted wood is just beautiful and perfect for your bandsaw boxes. The secret tray and "key" arrangment is a clever innovation. Is the "hidden hinge" a pin that you plugged the drill hole so it's hidden?

Randy, I really like what you did here. You continue to integrate new ideas into what you do. I really think you have nailed the magnet concept with the reversing tray. I like it better than the key concept. Great wood, innovative design, newly integrated concepts…what's not to like about this.

Thanks everyone for the great comments, glad you all liked the design and the wood, I have a huge stock pile of this spalted hackberry.

Andy yes to your question, I used 1/4" dowels but I also have 1/4" brass rod that I plan on using on future boxes, since this was my first I optioned for the wooden dowels to see how it was going to work, only with this design, mitered corners are out, I have to go with butt joints.

Another beauty, Randy. Thanks for sharing!!.................Jim

Handsome box !

clever opening mechanism for the false bottom. I like it!

Incredibly beautiful! What did you use for finish?

Valentin

I've found something that I like and seems to be working for me, I do one coat of Tung Oil with a wipe down let it dry, then 2 to 3 coats of Lacquer.

Nice Job Blackie

I dunno, that wood doesn't look decent for a girl's jewelry IMO. The box is neat for sure, the hidden compartment is well thought, but I feel the wood you used for it too busy and manly…

I mean, girls are supposed to be sweet, warm, delicate, and made of harmonious curves, right? This doesn't carry those feelings for me. Maybe the average girl in America is less of a princess than they are here in "ole' Yurrop"?

I'm into that kind of trouble at the moment, I have two jewelry boxes to build for the end of the month and I have quite a hard time finding the proper wood to carry the feminity feelings along with the stuff that will be inside.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be mean, just giving you a different PoV that what all our fellows above already said, the box is nice. I can look at this and think:" it's a different approach, so why the heck not?" but still feel uncomfortable with the wood choice (I worked with spalted hackberry once, quite a PITA in my book BTW, so more power to you for making something good out of it).

What a cool looking box, love the wood and design. I'm sure she loves it.

Thomas has a point there, Randy. You may be better off marketing the box without a gender identity. It doesn't need one.
You did a super job on the hinge and lid reveals. Getting that back lid gap so tight and even is not real easy, but you did it well. You kept the lid all one thickness too, which I never thought of doing. Guess it is because my lids are usually curved.
Glad you are working with some new design and construction ideas.
Donna

Ah thanks for the woods genders and comments, I didn't realize there was a gender for wood types, so what woods types, colors are considered feminine? What are considered masculine?

What would be a good representation for this box presented?

Thomas, you're the second person that's mentioned having difficulty with spalted hackberry and for me it's the complete opposite, a very gentle and soft wood to work with, I'd put it in the same cat of wood hardness with Alder.

Well, as far as I know, brown or grayish woods seem far more masculine than purple or red woods. I can't really explain better than what I did on the post above (because I have little time to really educate myself in these design and function considerations at this time), but the harmony of the grain and tonality of the wood play a big part. Purple or dark brown Walnut/ Walnut burl seems OK for jewelry boxes, as Madrone or Vavona (Redwood), but wood with more of a brown-gray-black-ish color like this hackberry feels less warm (hence less feminine) and seems better for masculine items: golden colored wood for example, as Camphor Burl, sounds absolutely like a man box wood.

Since I first landed here on LJs, I've set up an extensive collection of project images to get inspiration from (and ripoff an idea or two ), among which these:

37639 ,
38729 ,
39348 ,
41582 ,

and this astounding one:
49449
which feels very manly (due to the tone of the woods and the bookmatches),

51675 too quite obviously, as it's made for cufflinks,

while the extremely complicated
68954 and
69293
use darker woods, like the recent
72009

these last three are definitely for ladies. As they say, form follows function, sort of.

In fact I've seen a bunch of other fine boxes but didn't write out the spectfics of them nor grab pictures (there are so many great boxes out there), I only noticed that certain colors and shapes in the wood express different feelings and a different gender, to say so.

I think Donna is right, you'd better market this one with no gender attached to it or it might be hard to sell. No guy would want to buy a box that's tagged with "girly" despite it being blatantly male, and no girl would want her stash inside a "guy's" box either. Well, until one will come here to prove me wrong anyway

As for your last question, this box has a very bright overall color, with brutal spots of black and grayish brown and a really gray backside, is made of a single wood species, and carries no shiny metal hardware at all: to me, it's a fancy toolbox, or maybe for a smoker's pipe and tobacco. With a purple/dark brown/pink contrasting wood, it could become completely different and feel more "feminine".

Still, I think the best way is to ask the girls out there! How about a forum post about that?

As for the spalted hackberry, I only tried my hands at a crosscut pen blank, which probably explains why I had such a hard time working with it. The grain pores are huge, like chestnut, and it definitely challenged me, as I'm used to turning pens with fine-grained woods.