Spice Chest Jewelry Box

[Robert Maloney]

This is a Spice Chest/ Jewelry Box I made for my 6 yr old daughter as a big sister present. She helped me throughout the build from sanding parts, to picking out the finish colors and hardware. I chose to involve her because her mother was hospitalized with a rupture in her amniotic sac at 31 weeks of pregnancy and remained hospitalized until the induced labor at 34 weeks. So my daughter was born 6 weeks premature. There was no way I would get it done in time, so I decided to let her be part of the build to make the chest more special. The chest is a build that I followed along with on Charles Neil's Mastering Woodworking Site. It was a fun build for me as I have never done a Tombstone door or arched mouldings. Charles makes it easy to understand how to do it as he shows you step by step. He's a great teacher. The main chest is made out of Honduran Mahogany I bought awile back at a yard sale. The drawer fronts are made out of a really nice piece of Quilted Maple I bought and resawed. The finish is a combination of General Finishes Dyes, Followed by 2 coats of dewaxed Amber Shellac, and 3 coats of Target's EM6000. This has been one of my best builds to date. Hopefully with what I learned during this build and from these forums I can continue to build some more interesting and challenging pieces.

[Jeff Kahan]

Beautiful piece of work. The quilted maple really sets off well against the mahogany. Did you grain fill the mahogany before finishing?

[Ted Calver]

This is a sweet piece of work....made even sweeter by letting your daughter help. Nice job!!

[bob blakeborough]

Beautiful piece man! Your daughter and the generations she passes it on to will love it dearly I am sure...

[Prashun Patel]

"..a really nice piece of Quilted Maple..."

Understatement.

Beautiful all the way round.

[Robert Maloney]

Yes I did grain fill before finishing. I have to make one for my wife now, but this time I will dye first and do at least 2 coats of finish before grain filling. There are a couple of spots where the dyes didn't penetrate because of the grain filler, that or I didn't sand it off well enough. I'll chalk it up as a learning experience.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Simply stated.....absolutely stunning and made more so by the assistance of your daughter! Well done Sir!

[Craig Behnke]

Stunning. Quilted Maple is, in my humble opinion, one of the top 3 most beautiful woods in the world. it looks like pure honey flowing and rippling over a golden washboard.

[Stew Hagerty]

Gorgeous Robert. May I ask what dye(s) you used on the maple? Did you use a dye on the mahogany as well?

[Ron Bontz]

My goodness. That is just stunning. I hope you don't mind but consider it copied and pasted for future reference. I had been wanting to build one for my daughter, now 19, out of walnut and maple. But after seeing this maybe mahogany and maple.

[Robert Maloney]

The maple is just finished with a 1.5# cut of Dewaxed Amber Shellac and EM6000. The Mahogany was finished with a coat of orange dye, then a coat of Merlot dye followed by 1 coat of Amber Shellac then EM6000. My daughter actually helped me mix and match colors until we found something she liked.

[Stew Hagerty]

The maple is just finished with a 1.5# cut of Dewaxed Amber Shellac and EM6000. The Mahogany was finished with a coat of orange dye, then a coat of Merlot dye followed by 1 coat of Amber Shellac then EM6000. My daughter actually helped me mix and match colors until we found something she liked.

Thanks, it looks amazing. I've never used EM6000 before. It looks beautiful, how is it to work with?

[Bobby O'Neal]

Yikes. Wow. Sheesh. Gorgeous.

[Karl Card]

As others have said, that is very pretty. I love to mix wood, like what you did, the abstract bring both woods out.. at least for me anyway.

[glenn bradley]

Just stunning. A very beautiful piece.