Thread: WIP My first box

It's coming together nicely Steve. Those dovetails are not bad either.

Check out Gerner Hinges. Anton's butt hinges are not bad for the price paid.

Check out this pdf, some nice handmade grooving planes.



Cheers
Jacques http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5efa42923113b/011219030.PDF

Looking good, Steve. Welcome to the sometimes obsessive world of boxmaking!

Regards,

Brian

Good to see a thread where someone is starting out and we can watch their journey. Dovetails are a slow process when starting out but very satisfying when they work.
I have used the solid brass butt hinges from the green shed but tidy them up as shown in this video before installing.
I notice you have some Tee Track in the top of your workbench. Do you use them for some special purpose?

Thanks for the comments. Those hinges look nice Jaques, I might put in an order. The idea of making a grooving plane is appealing but I've just taken delivery of this lovely Marples M40 plane which looks like it dates from around 1940. Made in my home town of Sheffield. It needs a bit of sharpening but looks like it will do the job for now. I love the idea of being able to use these tools from my grandfather's time - he was a furnace hand and may well have poured some of the steel in this plane.

The photo also shows another view of my bench. The T-tracks are an attempt at holding things down on my small bench. They've been quite good. I made a few makeshift jigs to fasten into them and act as planing stops and I can clamp things in various positions.

Steve

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A good relaxing weekend in the garage was the perfect antidote to a stressful week at work. I was keen to try out the M40 plane to to make the grooves for the base. That went very well in the long sides but the ends needed a stopped groove and I discovered that the plane wasn't going to help as the blade is set back a couple of cm. I was able to start it off ok but then had to resort to cutting it by hand. I don't have a narrow chisel so bodged up a handle for the 1/8" blade from the plane. This worked ok but I should have been more careful to cut the edges of the groove before going in to make them a bit tidier.

I tidied up the inside faces remembering to sand before assembling the box. It went together quite well and left it in the clamps overnight. On inspecting the joints in the morning there were a few gaps so I tried filling the bigger ones with wood shavings which I'd seen on a Matt Eastlea video. This worked reasonably well but there are still a few small gaps, I'm quite happy with the result.

I then spent some time flattening the bottom so that it didn't rock and the top to match. A little tricky planing the assembled box to avoid splintering the ends but I managed to keep it tidy.

The final bit of tidying was on the lid. I very carefully cut and planed it to size, worried that I'd go too far. Of course the box is slightly out of square so this was a bit tricky. The end result is a lid that's just slightly big leaving a bit of room for final trimming if needed.

The end result looks nice; I'm hoping the timber comes up nicely with some Danish Oil, it looked good on a sample. I'm waiting on some Gerner hinges to attach the lid.

Steve
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Great to see you had an enjoyable weekend and made progress. It's amazing how well you can camouflage little gaps with the strategic placement of shavings or sanding dust and glue. It's probably a bit more difficult in your case because you have used 2 different coloured timbers. Glad to see you were aware of sanding the inside faces before assembly as they are a pain if you forget.
Just remember to check across the diagonals when clamped up and the glue still wet to ensure the box is square. Providing that both pairs of opposite sides are the same lengths as each other, equal diagonals will equal a square box.
Hope your hinges arrive soon and you can make some more progress.

Finishing off this project was a little bit disappointing with a few mistakes fitting the hardware to the box. I got some quadrant hinges from Gerner but they were not going to fit on this box as the lid is too thin to take the mortice required. So I opted for some butt hinges fitted to the outside which is a little less neat but ok in the end.

I then decided to add a chain on the inside to hold the lid. Here I messed up drilling the holes in the lid first in the wrong place (preventing the lid from closing) and then pushing one of them all the way through. So I now have holes everywhere! I opted for one chain in the end. We'll see how that holds up. The holes can be filled but annoying.

I finished the box with danish oil. The Rock Maple comes up well but the maybe Jarrah is quite subdued.

I made an insert to hold the bobbins this was designed for and covered it with red felt. The end result looks good and was well received by my wife. Overall a great learning experience, plenty of lessons to apply in the next projects.

Steve
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That's a great box! Making mistakes is part of the journey.
Thanks for sharing

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

It came out nice in the end Steve. On to the next one.

We all make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. Often it is only you that will notice them so if you don't point them out (which is hard to do being your own worst critique) most people won't notice.
I don't think you will have a problem with one chain as the lid is not a high load item.
I hope this box has inspired you to get into another one and you will see your own improvements. I think you have done a top job on your first effort especially with using dovetail joinery.

Cheers,