Simple purpleheart boxes

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Anonymous

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Hi all

I have been asked by a few friends to make them a box and last week I decided it was about time I got around to it.

For a while now, I have thought the deep and beautiful colour of purpleheart would look good with ebony accents. I have never made any boxes with dowels, and so I made some 4mm dowels from an offcut of ebony. Making 4mm ebony dowels is not to be recommended :wink: The wood is so brittle and it takes ages to get decent dowels from it. :roll:

The boxes are very simple as wanted the wood to be the focal point. However, I tried to add interest by extending the end pieces about 7mm beyond the front and rear faces - i think it really did help the look of these boxes.

I love the look of oak against purpleheart too and so the bases were cut from a plank of American white oak that I had lying around. After I cut the slots in the ends and faces to accept the base (used my new drawer plane from Phil :) ), i took the oak down to 10mm thick and then cut a rebate all around it. I intentionally cut the rebate 1mm deeper all around so that when assembled with the bottom face of the bottom flush with the bottom of the actual box, there is a 1mm gap all around - adds a bit more interest.

Final job was to route out some 6.35mm x 4mm slots in the top to lay in some more ebony. A few minutes with the 45 degree shooting board gave a lovely tight fit :D

Popular boxes these, had orders for 4 more already :wink:

Took 6 hours to make 2

hope you like

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Tony,
simple they may be. They are also very nice. Were the dowels made on the lathe?

Andy
 
Tony - nice boxes, same as Andy's question, how did you make the dowels? Lathe or a dowel plate - I've thought about getting a LN dowel plate and wondered if it was worth it? - Rob
 
dedee":2fy7vsbt said:
Tony,
simple they may be. They are also very nice. Were the dowels made on the lathe?

Andy

Andy

i was going ot make them on the metal lathe I was expecting for my birthday - in the end the lathe was not as good as I expected and I canceled the order. So mr Tom Lie Nielsen came to my rescue :wink:


Rob

I like the metric LN dowel plate. Worked very nicely on this project and the dowels were very accurately sized - recommended!
 
Tony - thanks for that. Have often thought that the inclusion of dowels in a different timber might be worth doing, have to have some thoughts on it :-k - Rob
 
Nicely done Tony, they are lovely!!

You've done an excellent job with the design, I think the wood combinations are really nice!
 
Tony lovely boxes!
FWIW, in the past I have achieved the dowelled look by using timber plugs in counterbored holes over small screws.
Easy I know but looks the same. :oops:
Martin
 
Martin, that's cheating :lol:

The dowels are 4mm diameter, so plugs and screws are not really an option on this one. The dowels are structural too and about 1" long
 
Look great. I hope your friends are pleased.

Adam
 
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