Wooden jewellery box, presentation box, personalised box, handmade box

To make a box (2)

Another page taking you through the making process. This time a walnut and burr walnut box. It was a commissioned box for a lady who wanted to house a Noah's ark collection. The top of the box is empty to house the ark, the drawers are compartmentalised to house the animals.

Click on images to enlarge.

I usually start on the drawing board. Here is the box drawn to scale showing the layout of the dovetails.

The box sides come out of one piece of wood. I use a hand plane to get rid of any marks made when machining the board.

I choose carefully which parts of the board I want to be the sides, front and back. Here the board is now cut up ready for jointing.

I use a marking gauge to set the depth of the tails and pins.

I cut the tails first, then mark out the pins. I use a mirror to help me avoid cutting below the marking gauge line.

The tails are nearly finished. Here the chisel rests in the gauge line ready for a tap with a mallet.

The tails are cramped firmly on the pin board then I mark around the tails with a scalpal.

I use a home made square with a beveled edge to mark the face of the pin boards. Please go to the dovetails page for a more in depth look at the dovetailing process.

After the dovetails are cut I dry assemble the box and make sure all the edges are flush.

cutting out the openings for the drawers

The next stage is cutting out the openings for the drawer fronts. I made a jig and used a router for this process.

The corners of the openings are left rounded by the router. I cut them square with a chisel.

I made another jig to put the curve on the sides. This time using a router table.

Here I am routing the groove to house the top panel. Note the curved piece of wood fixed to the router fence. This allows me to follow the curve on the side.

I have reassembled the box to find the position of the groove in the front and back. I mark where the groove should be to line up with the groove in the side.

This a mould I have made to shape the lid panel.

The burr walnut is glued to a substrate, placed on the mould and put in a vacuum press. A pump sucks the air out of the bag allowing atmospheric pressure to hold the lid in place until the glue cures.

Another groove is machined on all four sides of the box to house the base of the top compartment.

I carved my logo on the side of the lid.

Here the box is glued up. The white card on the lid is there to protect the burr veneer. Note that I leave the front and back over height.

Back on the router table to cut the lid off. Because the front and back are over height the box sits flat on the table bed.

It's always a relief not to make a mistake!

I still leave the front and back over height to make it easy to hold the lid. I use a hand plane to make sure the lid and the box fit together nicely.

Here I am routing out the groove for the ebony stringing. Again using the curved fence.

routing the groove for the ebony stringing

Finally it's time to cut the front and back to size. I use the table saw with the blade set at an angle to remove most of the waste.

I then use a plane to get everything flush.

I used smarthinges for this box. They sit in a groove machined on the router table.

Here they are ready to be fitted.

finally the finishing process. I gave the box a number of coats of finishing oil and then two coats of wax. To see how the drawers were made go to the drawer page.