Spalted(?) Cherry Box

[Vaughn McMillan]

After making a boatload of cutting boards, I decided it was time to start working in more than two dimensions. Cutting boards are fun, and nice ones require close attention to detail, so why not carry that experience over and upwards into making boxes? (Remember, I'm still learning this woodworking stuff, but I'm trying to build my skills by making more and more difficult pieces.)

One of the nice things about wood is that many errors can be fixed by changing the dimensions of the final product. In other words, you trim off the mistake, and your new entertainment center is now a nightstand. But it can still be a nice nightstand.

Well, after making several prototype panels and boxes out of pine, I wanted to make a "real" box from some nice spalted* cherry wood I found a while back. Working from no plans, I just held a ruler up in the air a few different ways and decided that the box would be 9" long x 7" wide, and about 3.5" tall. The sides of the box were to be 0.75" thick. To make a long story short, several unacceptable corner joints and a few judicious saw cuts later, I ended up with the final configuration of 6.5" long x 4.5" wide x 2.75" tall, with 0.375" thick sides. On the positive side, I was able to use some of the trimmed-off scrap to make the top for the box.

Without further ado, here are the results...

As I mentioned, the box is spalted cherry. The finish was several coats of McCloskey "tung oil" finish. The "finger joints" in the top are non-functional. The top is made of the scrap pieces I sliced off the long sides of the box (with a little bit of satine wood thrown in), so the finger joint was included in the slice.


http://workingwoods.com/workingwoods/boxes/ClosedBox1-500.jpg


This shot shows the bottom side of the top (with the little rails to hold it in place). You can also see the green felt lining on the bottom of the inside.


http://workingwoods.com/workingwoods/boxes/OpenBox1-500.jpg



Here's another look at the closed box. I like the way the finger joints look after I coved the sides of the box. It was one of those little surprises woodworking springs on me occasionally. Another experiment gone right.


http://workingwoods.com/workingwoods/boxes/ClosedBox2-500.jpg



This project had several firsts:

First "real" box
First finger joints that were not in a scrap wood test
First cove cuts with a TS that were not test cuts

I have another (much different) box in progress, and a few other ideas rattling around in my head, so stay tuned for more.

Comments and critique are appreciated.

- Vaughn

*Based on Lou's comments below, this might not be spalted cherry after all.

[Dan Forman]

Vaughn---That's a great looking box, the cove cuts and their effect on the fingerjoints really add interest. Nice wood too. It's fun to watch your progress. Keep 'em coming.

[lou sansone]

great looking box

I am not sure about it being spalted cherry though. it simply looks like cherry with some noticable pitch pockets and your basic streaking.

lou

[Seth Poorman]

Nice design Vaughn !

Seth...

[Michael Stafford]

Yes, indeed, that is an experiment gone right! I like the effect the cove has on the box joints as well. Very creative Vaughn. I admire your creativity. I have made a lot of boxes with box joints and have on a few occasions shaped them with the most common shaping being to have the box shaped just opposite of yours with the curve reversed. Never thought about coving it like that. Cool! I like it! :D

[Vaughn McMillan]

great looking box

I am not sure about it being spalted cherry though. it simply looks like cherry with some noticable pitch pockets and your basic streaking.

lou
Thanks for the correction, Lou. I was basing the "spalted" label on the fact that the guy at the wood store warned me to wear a dust mask when sanding it due to what he claimed was the fungus in the wood.

- Vaughn

[lou sansone]

hi VaughnI might be wrong on my thoughts, but I am not sure if cherry can really spalt like maple can. maybe some of the other wood experts can weigh in on this. It is a wonderfull box no matter what you call it.

regards
lou

[Paul Canaris]

Vaughn, I am curious about the technique you used to build the box. Did the cover cuts come after the box was assembled or before?

[Keith Burns]

What can I say...it looks great ! Love the unusual shape and it's affect on the box joints as well.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Wow! You sure are on your way. You are doing wonderful work their!!

[Jim Becker]

Beautiful, Vaughn.

Lou beat me to the pitch pocket thing...very common in cherry and not usually considered "optimum" for furniture, but is really wonderful for this application!

[Lamar Horton]

Very nice box, it looks like a miniature version af a blanket chest I saw in an old FWW magazine a buddy gave me.

Lamar

[Lee DeRaud]

Very nice!!

One thing I'm having trouble with: how thick was the side material when you started? You sliced 3/8" off the sides to make the top, then coved it?

[Jason Tuinstra]

Vaughn, I really like this project. The cherry looks great and the concave of the sides is a perfect touch. Excellent job. I really like these small projects. They give loads of satisfaction. Thanks for showing it off.

[Scott Donley]

I like it! Very nice ! Does this mean it's time to give up the day job ?

[Dan Larson]

Hi Vaughn,

Great box! I'd never seen that type of cove detail on a box before. You mention that you cut the coves on the TS. Did you use a cove cutter, or just a regular TS blade? Did you make a special jig for cutting the cove in the box?

Thanks.
Dan

[Roger Fitzsimonds]

Hi Vaughn,

most excellant box. Most people just make a sqaure box for their first one. You did great. I am guessing you cut the cove after the box was glued up. keep this up and you will be in the galleries and be working out of a studio instead of a shop.

Good Work

Roger

[Corey Hallagan]

Vaughn, that is very cool. I think you are much more talented of a wood worker then you let on. I can only hope my boxes turn out half as good as that. BTW, what did you use to cut the box joints with, the router or table saw and what jig did you use?

[Dick Strauss]

Vaughn,
One of your neighbors told me you've been shipping these beautiful little boxes out as fast as the trucks arrive. And they thought they were moving to a residential district, ha!

Seriously though, your box is like a little Hope Diamond that gleams in the light as you look at all of the different facets of it. Fantastic work!

I assume you could achieve the same coved effect on the box sides with a router and OSS? I assume that your method works considerably faster...just curious.

Are you using a jig you built yourself for the box joints or did you purchase one? Please share more details so that we can all learn.

Very nice work!
Dick

[Vaughn McMillan]

Wow, thanks for all the responses and comments. You guys are too nice. I'll try to answer all the questions, but I want to ask one first...are the terms "box joint" and "finger joint" interchangable? I'm assuming they are, but am willing to be corrected.

I cut the cove after the box was assembled, and after I'd sliced the side thickness in half. The sides were thinned up after the box was assembled, because I decided the 3/4" sides looked too thick for that small of box. The original 7" x 9" box would have looked OK with thick sides, but after cutting off the first (botched) finger/box joints, the box was too small for thick sides IMO. The side trimming and cove cut were done on the TS with my same ol' same ol' Freud combination blade.

All I used for a cove jig was a piece of 3/4" ply clamped to the TS at about 45* to the blade (and miter slots). I used a cove cut calculator I found on the web somewhere to get a rough idea of the angle to set the plywood "fence". After setting the angle, I just took slow, shallow (1/16" deep or so) passes until the shape was what I wanted. I made sure not to exceed half the wall thickness for the total depth of cut.

The finger joint jig was home made a while back -- just a hunk o' 3/4" ply attached to my miter gauge with a HDPE reference pin I made from scrap. I used a dado blade for the cuts, since they're 1/4" wide. Very rudimentary, but it works. This is the first real project I've used it on. (I'd like to make one someday with some adjustment built in. The one I'm using now results in very tight joints, so I end up needing to sand the fingers slightly to ease the fit. I messed up the first attempt by over-sanding, so I and had to reduce the size of the box.)

Scott and Roger, as much as I'd love to, I don't think I'm quite ready to give up my day gig for a while. I've got this bad habit called "paying the mortgage", and still I need to be able to support my habit. :P

- Vaughn

[john whittaker]

Dang Vaughn....I thought we were about on the same learning curve....but you just passed me as if I were standing still....Why don't you go on a long extended vacation and give me time to catch up.;)

Great Job. Most excellent design. Looks like I'll be "borrowing" some more ideas from your work.

Thanks for sharing.

[Don Baer]

Very Nice design Vaughn and well executed. I Like It. The current issue of Shop Notes has an article on making cove cuts on a table saw.

[Bruce Page]

Very cool Vaughn! I really like the cove cut, it adds a special uniqueness. Was it difficult to sand out the saw blade marks? I assume that you stopped the cove just shy of the box edge to avoid tear out.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Dang Vaughn....I thought we were about on the same learning curve....but you just passed me as if I were standing still....Why don't you go on a long extended vacation and give me time to catch up.;)

Great Job. Most excellent design. Looks like I'll be "borrowing" some more ideas from your work.

Thanks for sharing.
Yeah John, after seeing your nice cutting boards recently, I figured I needed to pick up the pace a bit, LOL. I think you'll find boxes are fun (and a bit challenging) to make. Next, I plan to make a working V8 gasoline engine out of wenge. With a curly maple carb and bubinga headers. On the table saw. :p

- Vaughn

[Vaughn McMillan]

Very cool Vaughn! I really like the cove cut, it adds a special uniqueness. Was it difficult to sand out the saw blade marks? I assume that you stopped the cove just shy of the box edge to avoid tear out.
Bruce, the blade marks were no problem to sand out. I fed the wood into the blade slowly, and I think that made a difference. I didn't stop the cuts as you described, but again the slow speed (and shallow cutting depth on each pass) seemed to handle the tearout problems. Also, I can't say enough nice things about the relatively inexpensive Freud combo blade I'm using. It's very smooth cutting.

- Vaughn

[Corey Hallagan]

Vaughn, thanks for all the information. What Freud blade (model # and type) are you using?
Thanks,
Corey

[Richard Wolf]

Great box Vaughn, I really like using cherry with charecter like that for accent pieces. It always add alot of interest.

Richard

[Vaughn McMillan]

Vaughn, thanks for all the information. What Freud blade (model # and type) are you using?
Thanks,
Corey
Corey, it turns out I was way off base calling my blade a combination blade. Upon looking at it this evening, I see it's the rip blade, not the combo. It's the 24-tooth "Freud Industrial" thin kerf rip blade. I can't find a model number. Whatever it is, it's served me well,,,the majority of my cuts since I bought it have been rips.

HTH -

- Vaughn

[Doug Cowan]

Very nice work Vaughn. I would have thought that burning would have been a problem doing the cove cut on cherry. I know that if I even think of slowing down when working Cherry I get burning, followed by lots of practice sanding. I am guessing that by taking very light cuts you got around that issue?

I see that we are almost neighbors. It is nice having another creeker near by. Maybe someday there will be enough of us left coasters to do our own BBQ. I envy those folks back east where people are close enough for get-togathers.

[Dale Rodabaugh]

Great job Vaughn,that is really sharp.:cool: ;) :D

[Andy Hoyt]

So Vaughn, when are you gonna switch day jobs? Looks to me like you're ready.

[Vaughn McMillan]

...I see that we are almost neighbors. It is nice having another creeker near by. Maybe someday there will be enough of us left coasters to do our own BBQ. I envy those folks back east where people are close enough for get-togathers.
Yeppers, we are pretty close neighbors. There are a few of us left coasters who aren't down in Orange County. I'm all for the idea of attending a SoCal Creekerpalooza...heck, we might could even invite the OC guys, too. :p


So Vaughn, when are you gonna switch day jobs? Looks to me like you're ready.

Thanks for the compliment, Andy. Sure wish I could afford to try it as a living for a while. It'd surely be more fun than my current day job.

- Vaughn

[Andy Hoyt]

Thanks for the compliment, Andy. Sure wish I could afford to try it as a living for a while. It'd surely be more fun than my current day job.

- Vaughn

Wait a minute! I never said anything anything about making living at it. :D

[Sam Blasco]

Sweet... Simple... Elegant... Really nice work.

[Corey Hallagan]

Thank Vaughn, that is what I wanted to know mainly, TK or full kerf. I like the TK blades for my saw as well.
Thanks,
Corey