Project Information
This started out to be a nice box but when I resawed the 3/4 board there was a big nasty pitch pocket right in the middle. There was no sign of it on the outside but there was no way I was leaving that showing even on the inside of a nice box. Too bad too since it was such a pretty book match otherwise. I've been wanting to build a box to go around that ever present tissue box on the bar for quite a while and this board fit the bill.
I took this box as a chance to practice my dovetails so I laid out as many as I thought would look ok. They's all hand cut, of course. It probably would have looked even better with mitered corners since three of the four corners are either book matched ends or continuing grain. The third picture is the least matched corner because it's the outside of the book match. The dovetails were not bad. I blew out a couple of them chopping the waste out of the tail boards but it hid well. I also blew out two of the pins cutting out the grooves for the top but was able to find the pieces amount all the shavings and chips on the floor of my shop and glue them back in place.
The top is a little under 5/8 and is grooved on the router table with a 1/4 inch groove and a 1/4 inch tongue, leaving less than an eighth of lip at the top to cover the tops of the side boards. I bored a hole with my largest forstner bit and rounded it over on both sides with my router. I fitted the top into the grooves in the sides and glued it to only one side to allow it to move with the seasons. There is no bottom, it just sits over the tissue box. Pretty snug fit too.
The finish was a first for me. I used a custom oil varnish blend. Equal parts Minwax Gloss Poly, BLO and Naphtha. Before using that I flooded on and wiped off a few coats of straight BLO. The blend was then put on and wet sanded and then pushed into the various cracks and pours to fill them all up. I sanded that in with 220, 320 and 600 grits. It left a very nice, low luster, in-the-wood look.
Well, the next projects aren't finishing themselves out there in the shop so I better get to it.
I took this box as a chance to practice my dovetails so I laid out as many as I thought would look ok. They's all hand cut, of course. It probably would have looked even better with mitered corners since three of the four corners are either book matched ends or continuing grain. The third picture is the least matched corner because it's the outside of the book match. The dovetails were not bad. I blew out a couple of them chopping the waste out of the tail boards but it hid well. I also blew out two of the pins cutting out the grooves for the top but was able to find the pieces amount all the shavings and chips on the floor of my shop and glue them back in place.
The top is a little under 5/8 and is grooved on the router table with a 1/4 inch groove and a 1/4 inch tongue, leaving less than an eighth of lip at the top to cover the tops of the side boards. I bored a hole with my largest forstner bit and rounded it over on both sides with my router. I fitted the top into the grooves in the sides and glued it to only one side to allow it to move with the seasons. There is no bottom, it just sits over the tissue box. Pretty snug fit too.
The finish was a first for me. I used a custom oil varnish blend. Equal parts Minwax Gloss Poly, BLO and Naphtha. Before using that I flooded on and wiped off a few coats of straight BLO. The blend was then put on and wet sanded and then pushed into the various cracks and pours to fill them all up. I sanded that in with 220, 320 and 600 grits. It left a very nice, low luster, in-the-wood look.
Well, the next projects aren't finishing themselves out there in the shop so I better get to it.
