From tree to work

I've always thought the Creek was a great source for research while I was working on small projects, improvements to my shop space, and general woodworking topics. So I finally signed up and I figured I would share a project I finally got to complete.

In 2009 or 2010, Irene or another major storm took down a significant cherry tree in my father-in-law's property. After much debate and research on transportation, sawing costs, additional transportation and storage, a cousin and my father-in-law got together on a starter mill. Fast forward a few years, and now I've started picking into the stack a bit, which is now in-doors to get the MC down from around 15% to below 10%.

The candle boxes I've made are based on the design I found available on the web through Google books I think, and while not entirely hand-tool creations, made great use of a #45 I picked up recently, along with other hand planes. Finish, because I was concerned with blotching, went seal-coat shellac, oil, oil, shellac, shellac, and finally rubbd out with paste wax. The second box was some seriously curly stock, and while I wanted the figure to pop, I didn't want it to be overwhelming.

Bob.

Those are really nice boxes. The grain is so curly it looks 3 dimensional. And what a great story - tree to project. Nice job.

That's some beautiful cherry, Bob, and the boxes you made really complement the beautiful grain. Very nice. How did you make the pull notch ?

Great to see that tree go to something other than firewood. Great job on the boxes too!

Thanks guys, definitely went the full yardage to avoid the fire wood scenario! Getting the full width super clear heart wood was a treat when we were milling, but it wasn't until we skip planed some of the boards that we recognized how curly some of the material was. Still haven't move a bunch of crotch material in-doors, but I didn't have a trailer big enough to take the whole load.

Yonak, for the pull notch I penciled a bit of a centerline on the top, and then sort of eye-balled the baseline distance from the end of the box relative to how a person would typically hold the box to open it. Scored and maintained the baseline with a chisel. Then (carefully) used a spoon gouge to open a more or less symetrical thumbnail down to that baseline. I didn't have a standard carvers sweep gouge, which I think could have been safer than the spoon, but it did the trick!

Congratulations. It must be satisfying having your hand in the process from tree to finished product. I must say that I'm a bit envious of the inventory. I am helping my son build a book shelf out of cherry and would love to have some boards with such intriguing figure.

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Originally Posted by Bob Kinsman

Yonak, for the pull notch I penciled a bit of a centerline on the top, and then sort of eye-balled the baseline distance from the end of the box relative to how a person would typically hold the box to open it. Scored and maintained the baseline with a chisel. Then (carefully) used a spoon gouge to open a more or less symetrical thumbnail down to that baseline. I didn't have a standard carvers sweep gouge, which I think could have been safer than the spoon, but it did the trick!

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Your description reminds me of a moment in a movie I watched the other evening : Apollo 13, when Lovell had to eyeball the earth while executing a "free-hand" 39 second burn. Your execution is a winner, too.

That is some spectacular cherry. Not just the curl but the range of color is unique. Producing your own lumber gives a real appreciation for how much work it takes. Hauling logs, milling, stacking, moving, re-stacking. A guy just about wears out the lumber just from moving it. I have some cherry lumber from logs I bought, had milled, stacked and air-dried, moved to inside storage, and after a couple of years is ready for use. Going through my own stack of lumber to select boards for a project is pretty satisfying. I'm sure you'd agree it's more enjoying using your own lumber than a board from the lumber yard.

Nice work on the boxes, too. Your finish really did justice to such wonderful wood.

Nice work, start to finish. Does your family still have the mill? Or was it just used for this job? I have cut up a lot of firewood lately with some recent ones being big cherry logs just like the ones in your first picture. The woodworker side of me is always bummed out that I don't have access to a mill to mill some of them up. I know I'll get flak for it, but I have even cut and split big logs of curly maple and thrown them in the BTU pile. I did cut some blanks for a friend of mine that turns bowls, but overall I have burned a lot of nice wood. I would love to do what you did here, but the cost of a mill is pretty prohibitive though.