Chris Knight
Established Member
Well, I am pretty sure I am not going to be doing anything more to my box before the competition closes, so here it is.
The intent was to make a box to store carving chisels (having just taken a carving course and done some carving for the very first time, I can see it being a useful adjunct to my general woodworking and maybe an interest in its own right). The box is very much a working tool box with two special features - firstly, it will have small carved panels that may be removed and changed for something else when my skills improve. At present it has only one such panel - others await progress on the carving front.. Secondly it is jointed with secret mitred dovetails which I have never done before. I turned to Ian Kirby's book to help me out with these.
I started with some ash
Chopped some secret mitred dovetails
Here I am marking those tails from the pins I made earlier. Note the little Swiss Army knife I used for cutting the marked lines - I copied this tip from Kirby's book - beats the rest of my knives hollow for this operation!
Mitred the corners - as seen in the left hand side. Ian Kirby recommends the shoulder plane for this operation, I found a long, sharp, paring chisel easier.
Added some drawer runners - a single screw in the centre is enough. The 4mm rebates hold the runner securely.
Made some finger jointed drawers from walnut left over from the chairs with ebony pulls (also leftovers) and a sliding door to cover them with a cutout for a small carved panel
Made a small incised carving and fixed it in place with magnets in the sliding door
Covered the magnets in the backside of the door with a small inlay motif
Put some tools in it - I thought about drawer dividers but eschewed them on the basis that I keep adding odd tools of different widths, so dividers (unless uniformly and inefficently wide) would hamper reorganising things - plus, it makes tools harder to pick up.
Considered carved panels for the back (which is frame and panel construction - large panel, small frame!) but decided to wait until I could carve a little better..
Still considering!
The box is finished with Patina - I gave it another go after talking to AndyP and following his advice on applying it, it went on quite well. The drawers are done with Liberon Finishing Oil.
The intent was to make a box to store carving chisels (having just taken a carving course and done some carving for the very first time, I can see it being a useful adjunct to my general woodworking and maybe an interest in its own right). The box is very much a working tool box with two special features - firstly, it will have small carved panels that may be removed and changed for something else when my skills improve. At present it has only one such panel - others await progress on the carving front.. Secondly it is jointed with secret mitred dovetails which I have never done before. I turned to Ian Kirby's book to help me out with these.
I started with some ash
Chopped some secret mitred dovetails
Here I am marking those tails from the pins I made earlier. Note the little Swiss Army knife I used for cutting the marked lines - I copied this tip from Kirby's book - beats the rest of my knives hollow for this operation!
Mitred the corners - as seen in the left hand side. Ian Kirby recommends the shoulder plane for this operation, I found a long, sharp, paring chisel easier.
Added some drawer runners - a single screw in the centre is enough. The 4mm rebates hold the runner securely.
Made some finger jointed drawers from walnut left over from the chairs with ebony pulls (also leftovers) and a sliding door to cover them with a cutout for a small carved panel
Made a small incised carving and fixed it in place with magnets in the sliding door
Covered the magnets in the backside of the door with a small inlay motif
Put some tools in it - I thought about drawer dividers but eschewed them on the basis that I keep adding odd tools of different widths, so dividers (unless uniformly and inefficently wide) would hamper reorganising things - plus, it makes tools harder to pick up.
Considered carved panels for the back (which is frame and panel construction - large panel, small frame!) but decided to wait until I could carve a little better..
Still considering!
The box is finished with Patina - I gave it another go after talking to AndyP and following his advice on applying it, it went on quite well. The drawers are done with Liberon Finishing Oil.