Salt Vaults

[Eric Holmquist]

A recent chapter challenge was salt vaults. I went for the style with offset bowl and a rotating hinge. Dabbled a bit with airbrushing on two to convey kosher salt and sea salt. Not sure what the third one says, Italian salt? Lids were all Box Elder Burl scraps from the free pile at Bad Dog Burls. Bases are Maple for two and Kiaat for the dark one. Finish is EM6000 waterborne lacquer. They are all about 4" (10 cm) across.

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[John Keeton]

Eric, I really like these! Very simple, but very stylish. Did you airbrush the dye on the blue one? The contrast on the last one is eye catching. I like 'em all!

[Eric Holmquist]

Thanks,

The lids have airbrushed Transtint dye to accent the figure of the burl, with a light airbrushing of transparent acrylic to get the color a bit more vivid. The base is just airbrushed transparent acrylic, it was un-figured hard maple, so no incentive to play with dye.

[Greg Just]

Very nice idea. They would make great gifts for a cook. How did you make the rotating hinge?

[charlie knighton]

very nice, striking, my favorite would be the Kiaat, of which i am not familiar, i like the offset

[Bernie Weishapl]

Those are great pieces and a really nice idea. I just like all three.

[Baxter Smith]

Very nice Eric! I have some cherry burl roughed out in a somewhat similar shape and am also interested in what you did for the hinge.

[Eric Holmquist]

Thanks

For a hinge, I went really simple with a 1/4" dowel glued into the lid. A friend gets a bit fancier and picked up some brass rod and tube at a hobby store. He found a combination that was a perfect fit. He glues the rod in the lid and the tube in the base.

Another option is to suplement the design with a small rare earth magnet ~1/8" diameter offset from the hinge. Drill and glue that into the base and have a steel pin in the lid. This provides for a magnetic latch. I have concerns about rust, so did not try this on these.

A key to success is a light lid. I had to remount the lid for the Kosher salt vault after the photo to thin it down as the vault tended to tip over when the lid was swung around back. This was the first one I tried and I learned not to make a small base. The combination of the small base and the leverage from the lid swung out forced a re-design on the lid.

I picked up a couple 4" Kiaat bowl blanks at Woodcraft last Christmas and they sat around waiting for a project. It is an open grained wood so that is the only one of the three with any finish on the inside of the offset bowl. I used some shellac there to seal the pores. Since shellac is an FDA approved food additive (if you see E904 as an ingredient, the food item has shellac in/on it) I felt comfortable with what would be continuous food/finish contact potentially lasting months. The closed grain maple bases did not need any finish in the bowl portion.

[Jim Burr]

Really Cool Eric! I did a long and detailed tutorial on these a while back. Due to selective blocking of links, well...sorry. Try a torsion pin for the hinge...it allows for a smaller wall. In some cases and climates, a thicker wall is desirable. I really like the airbrushing...wel done!