Keepsake Box
Charley Aug 31, 2019
I've been lurking for a while now and I'm still really new to woodworking, but I make up for it by the amount of scrap and sawdust I create. I wanted to make a box of a higher quality than those I've made in the past as a gift for my wife. I was taken by the look of ash in a small project I saw so I wanted to give that a try. I thought wenge would be a great contrast. My original design was to have legs and a larger top that involved tapered edges like a raised panel, but like many of my projects, the end result is the product of a series of small mistakes and corrections. By the time I finished, the legs were ugly and the tapered top was sort of asymmetrical (I've included a photo of that as well). In the end, I opted for a more traditional (for me anyway) footless box. With each small error, I made a small design change and ended up with a gift that continues to show some growth that I can be proud of.
I wanted to incorporate the wenge through the top to tie in with however I was going to do the handle, but I hadn't figured it out at this point.
I was pretty buzzed over how the pieces came together. I'd never worked with wenge before.
This was kind of what was in my head, but once I mocked up the pieces, it looked much differently than I anticipated. I bailed on the lid because I couldn't get the tapers to match. The legs looked too spindly so I tried some shorter ones and they looked too fat. I abandoned that design in favor of something closer to my comfort zone.
With this project, I concluded I need a greater variety of clamps as I came up a little short.
Glued up well and settled on this simple design for the handle.
I think I could have done just about any finish since the ash and wenge look pretty good together. The corners came out nice and tight.
I ended up with a Watco Natural Danish Oil followed up with a coat of Renaissance Wax.
I used a single bamboo skewer as a dowel to affix the handle to the lid with glue.
I've always worked in the 1/4 to 3/8 range and this was actually my first run at 1/2 inch stock. Quite a bit heavier than I'm used to and I really like it.
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