Maybe My Latest...

Good golly gosh! December/Christmas is a blur. Seriously. Like... I don't remember half of it. Since I wasn't drinking I am thinking that staying up until 4:00 AM multiple times was perhaps part of the reason I feel like I zombied my way through the month (Mountain Dew rocks my world). But it was all for a good cause. See, I was working on some jewelry boxes for The Nurse and the girls. Thought I might do a little show and tell (mostly show) of the project (sorry about the pics, they were taken with my phone and there was an epic amount of dust in there)...

I wish I had some earlier pics, but I didn't think of documenting it until this far in. Anyway, here are the girls boxes just over midway through. They are made of glued up pieces of Walnut, Cherry and Figured Maple. The lid hasn't been built yet for the one on the left and the one on the right, the lid hasn't been cut off of it yet.

Here is The Nurse's box at a fairly early stage. Four pieces of walnut with both sides dadoed to receive the maple top and walnut bottom. Just need to very carefully 45 the ends:


Here we have the girls boxes with their lids ready to go. The one in the middle still doesn't have a bottom on it, so it needs to be rabbeted and fit with a piece of walnut. As you can see, The Nurse's box is all glued up and ready to have the lid cut from it. Very, very, very carefully cut from it...





After cutting the lid of The Nurse's box it was time to cut in the miter splines. Heck all mighty I was nervous cutting into that nice looking box! Three carefully placed grooves cut into each corner. Then I cut a strip of maple to fit into each groove and glued them all in. Like so:



With the miter splines gluing, I went back to the girls boxes. Completed the construction and sanded them each 100 grit, 120 grit, 220 grit. Wiped them down good with a tack cloth and busted out the BLO!!! (Boiled Linseed Oil... don't be silly). Here they are with the 1st coat of BLO soaking in:



After the miter splines had dried overnight I cut them off with a flush cut saw and it was time to get the dividers and tray insert inside the nurses box done. Unfortunately I was too focused to take any pictures until I was done. But here they are freshly glued up:




(Side Note: in two of the above pictures you might notice the C-clamp on the box body. AAARRGGGGHHHH!!!! I was mortising the back of the box to recieve the brass hinges I had purchased for it. I had a lot of downward pressure on the router so that it would not tip and chew up the box. Well, the depth setting on the router didn't withstand my downward pressure and unbeknowns to me it was sliding. What does that mean? It means that my intent to mortise 1/32 of an inch out for the hinge turned into about 1/4 of an inch!!! Things were thrown. Words were had with the router and his careless actions. The C-clamp is holding a glued-in walnute 'patch' to fix the mistake. Thank heavens it will be under a hinge when all is said and done. What a nightmare that night was!).

Next night, with the walnut patch dried overnight, I cut its edges off and sanded it flush. Honestly, you could barely notice the stupid mistake. Time for some BLO on The Nurse's box! Yeah for BLO!!! Seriously, look how it makes that grain pop. Freakin' awesome:




Well, from here on out it is pretty much the same: apply BLO, let it soak in for 24 hours, sand down any raised grain, apply BLO, let soak in for 24 hours, sand raised grain, apply BLO, etc... I got one coat of varathane on the girls boxes before Christmas eve, but because of the 'set back' on The Nurse's I didn't get any on hers. It will have to be done later. Christmas eve I fit all the hinges (a bit of a nightmare process all its own). And here are the 'mostly finished' boxes delivered Christmas morning. I will put several more coats of finish on them:








There you have it. Three jewelry boxes for three very special girls. I hope each of them knows that I love their stinkin' guts!!! :)