Cedar - Part deux

[Rob Luter]

Some of you may have read my other thread here about struggling with soft Cedar. After coming to terms with how it needs to be worked I managed to hack together a nice little rustic box. The sides are Western Red Cedar planks that were left over from a deck build from almost 15 years ago. I resawed the 6/4 planks and planed them down to a reasonable thickness. The top and bottom are some really tight grained Cedar that the previous owner of the house left here. The box joints were hand cut. The slab bottom is attached with cut nails and a little glue. The top is hinged with a rabbet around the perimeter and a raised center portion that drops into the box and keeps things aligned. The cross grain rabbets were a real adventure. I see a skewed rabbet plane in my future. As is customary with my personal style, I left a number of simulated flaws and plane marks that will communicate to the viewer that this was made with hand tools by a weekend hobbyist sneaking up on codger status. Some of the simulated flaws look so real it's uncanny.

In any case the first coat of natural danish oil really warmed things up. The Cedar soaks it up like a sponge, especially the end grain.I'll let it cure then sand again and give it a couple more coats before topcoating with shellac and wax. More photos to follow when complete.

[James Pallas]

Nice going Rob. Some people learn to tame wildcats others stick to little fluffy kittens.
Jim

[Jim Koepke]

Very nice Rob, the box joint looks great.

jtk

[Christopher Charles]

Lovely box, Rob. Your signature line likely sums up most of the keys to working with cedar

Best,
Chris

[Rob Luter]

Lovely box, Rob. Your signature line likely sums up most of the keys to working with cedar

Best,
Chris

I’m wishing sharp was enough. I usually work in QSWO and in comparison it’s much easier. If I was doing rough work the Cedar would be fine, but the soft and stringy material makes fine work pretty tough. For example, a freshly honed chisel at 45 degrees to the grain carves off wood as though it was soap. At 90 degrees to the grain the wood fibers just crush. Any cross grain planing is a pretty touchy process. End grain planing like shooting the ends of boards is all but impossible. A low angle block plane skewed 45 degrees works ok, but you need to finish with sandpaper.