Weighted Base Box Build Process

4/9/2021

I've decided to make one or two new boxes but I'm going to make it hard for myself (because I'm stupid like that):

1. I'm using some awkward bast**d bits of wood
2. I'm going to try to do it all with hand tools†, despite my complete lack of any skill/experience with hand tool joinery
3. I haven't actually got a design in mind, so I'm going to be making it up as I go along...

† I reserve the right to reach for an electric drill if drilling ends up being required, as I don't own any other sort of drill.

I'm mostly doing this as an exercise in getting better at hand toolery, but you never know, I might end up with a box out of it (or some firewood!)

I started this afternoon by grabbing a couple of bits of wood to use as source material. First off I got this bit of padauk. I picked this up on a whim when I was at a wood sale (partly because I'd heard it smells nice) and I've no idea what I'm likely to do with it, so I thought I'd use it for practice.

First job was to rip it in half as it's way too thick for a small box. I started off with my home-made kerfing saw:

Then it was just a case of following the kerf:

That was hard work, which probably should have warned me something about padauk.

Next was a number 5 plane to try to get the surface looking a bit less sawn:

That left a lot of tear-out, whichever way I approached it. The padauk seems to have stripes of alternating grain - like I said, I didn't make this easy for myself:

I'm hoping to avoid sandpaper in this project if I possibly can (I wouldn't be surprised if I resort to it at the end, but we'll see). For now I decided to give myself some practice with the #80. A good workout, but that looks a lot better now:

Next up was a bit of maple (why, oh why didn't I choose pine?!). The maple got the same kerfing saw treatment and then got ripped in half:

I was quite pleased with the straightness of my sawing (the padauk was good too, I just didn't get any photos) - I think I might be getting a bit better slowly.

Again the plane came out next, again leaving lots of tear-out.

That meant getting the #80 out again: it's not perfect, but it's a lot better:

That's as far as I've got so far - it felt like it might be cider o'clock so I stopped. I haven't quite figured out what comes next (although I guess the first job is making sure faces of the bits of wood are parallel). My initial plan had been to make a padauk box but I'm thinking that the colour might be a bit much (and that grain is going to induce quite a few curse words!).

Therefore I might end up with a (badly!) dovetailed padauk & maple box (with something else for a lid I guess?) and a mitred maple box. Or maybe something completely different, who knows?!

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