Improved Butterfly Box in Cherry with Walnut Miter Splines
WoodGate Sep 07, 2020
Made a quick project for my SIL. She mounts butterflies and needs cases that seal well to keep parasites out but also show off the butterflies. I have made her 6 of these boxes now. These use a Walnut miter spline for added miter strength. My previous version did not have the raised humidor style lip that provides a near air-tight seal. The butterflies can be targeted by parasites after they are mounted so this style of seal helps to keep the boxes tight. My previous one was featured as a reader-submitted project in Canadian WoodWorking Magazine.
Economies of scale really kick in when making 4 of these. This project took only a few hours longer than making a single box. I have about 10 hours in all 4 boxes.
#butterflybox #cherrybox
Why make 1 when you can make 4?
The raised lip design seals these boxes like a humidor.
Each box is held shut with 3 pairs of rare-Earth magnets.
I used inexpensive big-box hinges at $3 each.
Shadow boxes, which is what these are, usually are mounted flush to the wall. You can see the screw holes in the top of these boxes as they were originally designed to be flush mounted. My SIL did not want this however and wanted to be able to mount these like a standard picture frame.
I used Miter splines (in Walnut) for strength.
All of the materials were leftovers from previous projects. In particular, this piece of 5/4 Cherry was leftover from my Dresser project. I re-sawed it to get twice the yield. Box is 1/2" thick.
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