Thread: Box from Recycled Timber

Bought some 40 years ago the western red cedar Jack and Jill garden setting had finally succumbed to the ravages of time and weather and was no longer repairable and we now have a newer karri set inherited from our son.


I was able to recover some usable pieces 65 x 18 x 300mm. After resawing some from a short dabble with Aldi bandsaw which had to be returned due to an electrical fault, I ended up with pieces around 8mm thick after cleaning up and hand planing. Some I glued together to make wider pieces. The narrower pieces formed the sides of the box with hand sawn mitres.


Initially the box lid was to be a loose fitting flat lid but half way through whilst waiting for glue to dry, I got to thinking maybe I could make this something special by adding a curved lid to make a small chest.


I knew the width of the box was 100mm so I used Pythagoras’ theorem to work out the radius, then the circumference divided by four to get the arc length and that gave me the number of strips I needed and the cut angle to make the curve.


I had previously made up a table jigsaw for another small project so I removed the ball bearing guide piece and set the jigsaw as best I could to the calculated angle and cut the strips flipping the wood after each cut. I glued five strips at a time together and then the two arcs to form the curve. I sanded down to remove the angles in the curve cut to size to match the box and end plates added.


The completed box is finished with three coats of Monocel satin finish water based clear wood varnish applied by cloth. Hinges and clasp were from the big green shed. I had to trim the pins for these due to the depth of the sides and add a drop of Loctite super glue to secure. The stays are leather cord. SWMBO picked out the blue felt for the box bottom


Overall pretty happy with end result and the garden setting is recycled to live a new life.

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