Graduation Box
I was asked to make a box roughly 23 inches x 13 inches. It needed to be depth enough to hold an unknown bottle of wine as well as wine glasses, coffee cups, and coffee beans. I was to be given two leaves from another source to add to the top. She wanted handles on the sides, a Wayne Gretzky quote burned into the inside of the lid, and she wanted the lid to stay open and closed went placed in either position. She also wanted to make sure it was a show piece to be displayed. Yes Artistic License Authorized!
I started with one of the two salvaged logs from a County Burn site near my house. So far I have not been able to identify the specie of wood. Every time I think I found it, the leaf or grain patterns don’t match the bark. So it is either a River Birch, an Ash, or maybe Beech. The only thing I can say for sure, it is not cedar or pine.
I sliced up the wood and let in finishing drying for 3 weeks. Regularly flipping the pieces and mixing the up to get some even drying. The log has been in the shop for almost 2 years so I was not too worried about the boards warping a great deal. I did want a little warping and left the pieces with varying thickness to add to a rustic and obviously glued together feel. I cut off all of the split ends and used the table saw to give the side clean, straight edges for gluing. Then I lined them up smallest to largest for the panel I would cut my final pieces from. I chose to do it this way so I could use the largest piece of scrap at the end for another wall circles project.
Cutting the pieces for the box from the panel was easy. Then I used my router to cut a groove around the base to set the sides into, to ease the process of gluing the box together. I used only a few clamps to get every thing aligned. Then added 10 more clamps while the glue cured. I left the project to sit for 3 days (working my full time job = no shop time.) While the glue did it’s stuff, I removed the lid and burned in the Quote. Then I aligned the hinges and made the handles. I used leather, cut into thin strips and braided those together.
When the clamps came off, I carved out the top with some hand tools to create a matching pocket for the brass leaf to sit in. I needed more surface area contact to glue the leaf down and not worry about it falling off. The final thing installed was the latch. I set, then reset, and then try again 15 more times… to line up and adjust it so the latch would hold the lid closed when turned over to hover in the air and dropped 6 inches with a sudden halt.
The final step was to take all the pieces I installed and finished the wood with a paste wax. 2 coats to protect the wood. When dried and buffed, I reinstalled the lid, handles, and hardware.
