Thread: Work in progress - Padauk Box

An inspirational post. Great work as always.

Raining cats and dogs here today, so it is a good time to escape to the woodshop. Once you have your dovetails cut, put the box together and figure out what is the top and what is the bottom. Now write "TOP" on all the top surfaces. Trust me. If I had a dollar for every time...

Due to the nature of through dovetails, a blind rabbit must be cut to accommodate the bottom panel. I do this on a router table with a 3/4" upward spiral router bit and stop blocks clamped at the appropriate places. This rabbit is 6mm x 3mm.

Box14.JPGBox15.JPGBox16.JPG

The long sides (front and back) get a through rabbit and can be done on the table saw.

Box17.JPG

Now the short sides (pins) get a rabbit cut into their top surface. Since this material is about 16mm, this rabbit was made 8mm x 8mm. This rabbit is on the inside surface of the box. Do this rabbit in the correct order and all you have to do is raise the table saw blade to rip the top of the long sides to match perfectly every time. This operation will recess the lid.

Box18.JPGBox19.JPGBox20.JPGBox21.JPG


Now your box has the top rabbited to recess the lid and the bottom is recessed to fit the bottom panel. A little work with the chisel will take care of the radiuses left by the router bit.

Tomorrow I hope to route the hinges and fit the lid.

The hurricane remnants are out of here and the sun is shining again. Today I plan to cut the hinge mortises using my homemade hinge mortise jig. Just an old piece of cherry, really. I will be using a 1/4" spiral router bit with a 7/16" guide bushing so the jig was made with 3/32" relief all around. I use double sided tape to secure my jig to the workpiece. It's pretty good stuff. Can use it 4 or 5 times before it really needs replacing, so it's good and sticky. Route the hinge mortises on the back side panel and then peel the jig off and slap it on the simple panel that will be the top. Route those out too.


box25.JPGbox26.JPGbox27.JPGbox28.JPG



Now it's time to take a chisel and square off those rounded surfaces left by the router bits. Sand the inside surfaces of the box. I go to 220 because the inside isn't going to be finished. The outside is a different story. Glue it up and clamp it for overnight.


box29.JPGbox30.JPG



I figure I have four hours invested in this box so far. I figure I might have another four to go.

After much sanding, the box now looks like this. I've gone to 320 so far. Putting the lid on the carcass, I have come to realize that this box needs a lift to break up the monotony of the front panel. With the box being rather red, a brown lift will not do. If I had some holly, a white lift would look fine, but I have no holly. I do have Gaboon ebony however, so black it is. Tomorrow I will set my router table up for routing the rebate for the lift, which is about 3mm thick. This is going to add hours to this project. Something I was trying to keep to a minimum. It would tickle me pink if I could build something like this with less than 8 hours of labor in it.



box35.JPGbox36.JPGbox37.JPG

The build time might be killing you but I'm enjoying the progress along with the WIP photos.

I set up my router table to route the recess for the ebony lift. The ebony strip is about 3mm thick and will protrude from the front of the box by about 3 or 4mm. Lift is 108mm long. After routing the recess, a little chisel work cleans up the corners.


box40.JPGbox41.JPG


I sanded the strip of ebony to 320 before trimming to fit and gluing it into place. I'm happy with the fit and pleased with the proportions of it with regard to the size of the box. That is a 2" thick piece of Gaboon ebony that the box is resting on. Bought a pile of it about ten years ago and still have several large pieces like this. Since I use it so sparingly, it should last me the rest of my life.

box42.JPGbox43.JPG


Time to begin work on the bottom of the box.

Setting the lid aside to allow the glue for the lift to cure, I cut a piece of thin (4.5mm) plywood for the bottom. Happy with the fit I take it over to the house for the liner. The black sheet that you see here is picture frame mat board. I purchased it from a picture framing supply house and the sheet I got is about 30" x 40". Enough to do at least a dozen boxes. It is available in a wide variety of different colors as well, which is nice.

box45.JPGbox46.JPGbox47.JPG

I cut a sheet slightly larger than my plywood and adhered it with a generous quantity of spray adhesive. I then weighed it down with some cutting boards which I had laying around. I will trim the mat board to fit with an X-Acto knife after the glue has set.


box48.JPGbox49.JPG

With the lid, do you just do glued butt joins on the ends or is there some other hidden joinery?
Nice cutting boards you have made too.

Originally Posted by Treecycle

With the lid, do you just do glued butt joins on the ends or is there some other hidden joinery?
Nice cutting boards you have made too.

It is such a relatively small lid, I felt that tongue and groove would be overkill. Perhaps with the next one. Just butt joints and let the Titebond take care of the rest.

I went through a cutting board phase a while back and cranked them out like there was no tomorrow. Now, they are lying about everywhere. They make for good weights.

IMG_1122.JPG

A whole lot of sanding has been happening. Used a random orbital to 220, then hand sanded everything to 600. Just flooded a coat of oil on it and it's going to sit like that for a while. I have a senior's golf tournament tomorrow and expect that it will take most of my day (shotgun start at 9:00 am), but if I get home in time I will put another coat of oil on the pieces. The oil has really brought out the red in the timber. A couple more coats and it will be ready for buffing with wax.

box50.JPG

Looks nice with the oil on. How long do you need to leave it before waxing?
Hope you had a good day at golf. We can't do it even if we wanted to at the moment.

Nice colour. Do you know what the Bush Oil is made from? The website just says it is a high solids finish. I assume it's thicker than Danish Oil.

Hard to say with the oil cure time, all depends on temperature and humidity, both of which are high this time of year. As for the oil, all I know is it seems to be a tung oil blend of some kind with a high level of solids so it builds more quickly. I really don't know more than what the website says, but I saw it demonstrated at a wood show that I went to and the finished pieces all looked nice, so I purchased a can. A fool and his money...

Anyway, after the first coat, so far so good. I will wait for it to be completely dry before I consider another coat.

Okay. Finally back with it. I saved you the tedium of the multiple coats of oil and two coats of paste wax. My wife felt that it needed a sliding tray, and her advice is generally sound so it now features a sliding tray. I learned some things from this box and will be making some adjustments in the future. I like the knot feature on the front. I think it gives it visual interest.

Hope you all enjoyed watching the progress.

box65.jpgbox66.jpgbox67.jpg