A small box - Handtools only project

[Robert Trotter]

Been a while since posting...

I was practicing cutting dovetails and it turned into a box...

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Actually this turned into practice for using a few tools;
new saws, chisel, plough, side rabbet(new), rabbet, shoulder etc.

The thing I have to work on the most is my chisel work. Most misses were due to chisel misses and my not using my new tool (a pair of glasses - everything goin fuzzy - that time of life:()


I also tried a bit of inlay by putting a couple of strips of tropical hardwood in.

I also made this as an enclosed box and sawed the top off. I tried both my 16" rip tennon saw and a 14" x-cut sash saw. the tennon saw was very quick for it's half of the box. the x-cut sash saw was slower going but not slow, but it was a cleaner cut. However, as I had to clean up the surfaces anyway with a plane the finish wasn't really an issue. You just need to watch for splintering on the back side of the cut, I would think, so that is why Mike suggested a x-cut saw for cutting off the lid. MAybe the wood species might change the selection. Anyway I tought it might be a useful comment to others contemplating cutting boxes in half with a hand saw. :)

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The wood is some unknown wood I salvaged from and old set set of drawers - soft wood but I don't know if it is softwood but probably is. It was just practicing at first, but turned into something real. I finished it with oil and then waxed it.

I am planning on giving it to a friend's daughter as teenage girls here seem to like collecting little things.
Anyway thought I'd share.

Rob

[Robert Trotter]

Maybe someone can tell me how to get a higher quality picture posted. After resizing them they just don't look as good.
Rob

[Tony Shea]

Cannot help with the picture issues. But the box turned out great. Is the best way to practise technique, make something useful. I;m not a big fan of cutting a bunch of boards up 3" long and putting dovetails together. One might as well figure out a small project such as this and have at it. Usually the finished product will be of much better quality as we tend to take a little more time if we know we are creating something to be used.

I like the wood, would like to see a better picture of it to try and identify it. Its really hard to tell from the pics. Has a nice soft look to it.

[David Keller NC]

Rob - The wood you're using appears to be eastern white pine. Aged EWP appears tan to even orange, and is probably the single easiest cabinet-grade wood to work with hand tools. If it didn't smell like pine when you were working on it, my second guess would be aged poplar. Poplar is probably the 2nd most used as a secondary wood in furniture before the second half of the 20th century, and appears "nut brown" when aged (freshly felled and dried poplar is greenish in color, and smells -really bad- when worked, though not as bad as sweet gum).

[Robert Trotter]

Sorry for the delay -busy
Thanks for the replies. Tony, while I have just done somepractice joints I agree with you and prefer to make something for practice.
David, thanks for the feedback on the wood. Going by your description I'd probably go with the aged poplar as it was more brown than orange. If so, then I now know what poplar is like to work with- easy.

Rob.