Category Archives: Woodworking

Schrodinger’s Jewelry Box

Schrodinger's Jewelry Box

I call this kind of box a “Schrodinger’s Box” as a reference to the fact that it’s made as one large box, and until you slice off the lid, there’s just no telling WHAT might be inside… Maybe even Schrodinger’s Cat

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrodinger’s_cat

Ususally there’s just sawdust, but you never know….

Schrodinger's Jewelry Box

The dark wood is walnut, the top is quilted maple with a walnut stripe.

Schrodinger's Jewelry Box

The Square Round Box

It didn’t start out to be round, or oval I guess, it started out as a regular square box, but I thought it was a bit too chunky or something, so I decided to round over the corners at the bandsaw.

Round Square Box

The main body of the box is Kingwood, one of those dense, oily tropicals that doesn’t take a film finish well, so it had just one light coat of Danish Oil finish, and some furniture wax.

Round Square Box

The lid is cherry, with two slightly curvy strips of walnut running through it. It was cut from a larger piece that I did a while ago just as a proof of concept for a future project, which turned out to be this one.

Round Square Box

Round Square Box

Lacewood and Bubinga Box

Here’s a new, small-ish box I made from lacewood and figured bubinga, of which I only have a small bit, and it’s not cheap, so I’ll be using it sparingly like this.

Lacewood and Bubinga Box - closed

The box is about 4″ x 7″ by 5″ tall, and is finished with Danish Oil Finish and some paste wax, which is my go-to finish these days.

Lacewood and Bubinga Box - open

This box is pretty similar in size to the canarywood box I made a while back.

Tiny Wee Box

I made a tiny little box today, just for kicks. It’s quite small. I measured it, and it’s about the right size to hold a tape measure.

Wee Box (open)

The box is 3 inches by 4 inches by about 3 and half inches tall. Lacewood sides, Zebrawood on top. Tiniest hinges I’ve ever seen, but they seem fine.

Wee Box (closed)

I really like the look of Lacewood’s endgrain, so I left the end grain showing on the front and back, as a feature, rather than mitre the corners like I might normally do.

Cheese Plane and Board

Cheese Plane and Board

Recently I made a couple of Cheese Boards, and then I discovered I had one kit left for a Cheese Plane, so I thought I should get to it. The wood on the Cheese Plane is called Pau Ferro.

Cheese Plane

Octagonal Cheese Board

Octagonal Cheese Board, originally uploaded by rgdaniel.

This cutting board is billed as a cheese board here, if only because that’s how it was requested, and because it’s a good compact size for that, about 8″x12″. It’s an inch-and-a-quarter thick, so the finger recesses leave ample room for even my giant fingers to slip underneath and lift it easily.

The wood species (from the outside edges) are maple, purpleheart, cherry, and walnut. For food-safe reasons, it’s finished with mineral oil, just the kind from the drugstore.

This one is spoken for but there’s another exactly like it, except it’s 14″ long, that is available. As always, just holler.

(Click to view large on Flickr)

Canarywood Box

A small elegant box, the sides are canarywood and the top is purpleheart. First time I’ve built anything with the canarywood, I was quite impressed, I must get more of this. The box is about 5″x7″ and about 4″ tall.

Canarywood Box - closed
Canarywood Box – closed

Canarywood Box - open
Canarywood Box – open

Another Swivel Clock

Another Swivel Clock

(Click to view large on Flickr)

I made a couple of these just over a year ago, and then realized the other day I still had one clock mechanism left. It wasn’t doing anyone any good sitting in a drawer, so I made the clock to go around it. This one is purpleheart with curly maple.

This is one of the older ones I did. Pretty much identical except for the wood choice (wenge and curly maple).
Swiveling Desk Clock

(Click to view large on Flickr)

From a design by The Wood Whisperer.

Two New Jewelry Boxes

Just finished the third of three large jewelry boxes, which have occupied most of my summer and fall, off and on. Also included here is a tiny little box that took only a day to construct (but then some time on the finishing and flocking). The large box is finished just in time to qualify for free shipping to the client (my wife is driving down to the city next week).

As always, click any photo to view larger on Flickr.

Large and Small Walnut Jewelry Box
“Say hello to my leetle friend”

Large Walnut Jewelry Box
A tiny bit larger than the last two large jewelry boxes in this series, this one measures about 9″ x 15″ and about 5″ tall.

Large Walnut Jewelry Box
Two pieces of bookmatched quilted maple, divided by a walnut strip, make a simple lid design that lets the wood do the talking.

Large Walnut Jewelry Box
Lots of scope with this large box containing 30 separate compartments of various sizes. The blue flocking sets it off nicely.

Large Walnut Jewelry Box
Shown here with the upper tray removed.

Mini Walnut Jewelry Box
About 4 1/2″ square by 4″ tall, with the lid. From a test piece I cut while building the larger box, I thought this would make a sweet little box of its own.

Mini Walnut Jewelry Box
Zebrawood lid is just rabbeted to fit, shown here removed to display the blue flocking inside.

All of my recent boxes have employed mitred corners with mitre keys for style and more importantly to improve the glue bond at the corners. Other similar construction techniques were used on all of them, like the way the lids are made, and the way the hinges are attached. Think I need to shake things up for the new year, but not sure how yet.

Thanks for looking! And remember, click any photo to view larger on Flickr.

Tea Light Candle Holders

Tea Light Holders

(click photo to view larger on Flickr)

This is a pair of small tea light candle holders, based almost entirely on a design by Steve Ramsey of “Woodworking for Mere Mortals”. You can see the original if you click here.

The only thing I changed was that I cut a bit of an angle from the ends of the maple pieces, rather than leave them just square and straight. The other thing I changed, somewhat reluctantly, is that I made the shallow holes for the candles a bit wider, because the “right-sized” holes seemed a bit unsafely undersized for these candles. The wood species used are maple and purpleheart.