My Latest ... No It Is Not A Pen!....My First Lidded Box

[Corey Hallagan]

Well, I have been putting this off for quite a while. Kind of scared a bit of it and Bernie has been counselling me for awhile giving me pep talks.. thanks Bernie! So I got a little piece of ash 2 x 8 inches long and turned this little box. I guess that is all I needed .. a little kick in the ash

Anyway, here it is... the good, the bad and the ugly! I am pretty happy with it being my first one. It is about 1 7/8 inches in Diameter and 4 1/4 inches high with a lacquer finish. I know now what I need to work on. The lid and finial could have been much sharper, but I like the shape. The bottom turned out rougher than I wanted even though I reverse chucked it, but it is much better than if I had just parted it off. Also the inside of the bottom doesn't look as nice as the inside of the lid. Didn't do as nice of a job scraping I guess. One other thing, my new Nova Midi chuck worked flawlessly and held on well.

This was also inspired by Kenneth George's tutorial he has on his website. Actually he has 2 on doing boxes and lots of other good info. Thanks Ken!
http://www.theturnersshop.com/

Thanks for looking as always,
Corey

[Bernie Weishapl]

Corey my friend ya did good. That is a beautiful first box. Looks better than my first by a long shot. Proud of ya. Nice work. I guess now I will have to try one out of that ash you sent me.

[Barry Stratton]

Great job Corey!!!!!!! Very well done!!!!!

[George Conklin]

Nicely done, Corey. Pretty soon you'll be giving Big Mike a run for his money!

[Bob Noles]

Corey,

First pens and now boxes. You need to stop hanging out with Bernie, he is a bad influence on you

Seriously..... nice box and great job. You did good Bud!

[Corey Hallagan]

Thanks guys for the kind words. It was alot of fun once I relaxed. Learned alot on the use of some of these tools that I probably would have learned already if I was a bowl turner. In the second photo you can see a little ding. That was do to me turning on the lathe before the box bottom was set on the reverse chuck. Flipped it onto the floor and got a nice ding. Nothing to do about that.... but I won't forget! George.. I figure I will have to turn several hundred of these before I could even see myself being close to being in the same league as Big Mike!!

A question for Big Mike. I fitted my lid to the bottom and had a tight fit. so I turned the profile of the box and did most of the sanding. Took the lid off and then drilled out the bottom of the box with a 1 inch forstener bit and then used the scraper to smooth and take another 1/4 inch off the sides. After this was done, the lid no longer was a tight fit and I didn't touch the outside diameter. Too much heat build up and it shrunk it a bit?

Corey

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Corey......Beautful lidded box! Great first!

One thing that I've learned and Richard Raffan points out in his videos. Be real careful about sanding once you've got your lid set. A small bit of sanding will ruin the fit of the lid to the body!

Could be shrinkage too.

[Corey Hallagan]

Thanks Ken! That is what is wierd though, I got it tight and pulled off the lid to drill a small hole and didn't touch a tool or sand paper to the outside rim. Oh well, it fits nicely still with out slop or anything. You sit the lid on the top and it kind of slowly slides down and stops, just no suction pop when you take it off.

Corey

[Rich Stewart]

That's because the wood moved because that's what wood does. It will probably tighten back up. I have done a couple boxes that got splits in them and I was ready to throw them away and a week later the wood had moved back so tight you would have a hard time finding the crack. I did a cocobolo box and a crack opened up in the base a quarter inch. A week later it closed up and I couldn't find the crack.

That's a great first box. You did a good job on it. Try one in Kingwood. You'll love that. Mama claim your first one?

[Henry C. Gernhardt, III]

Lovely first box, Corey. The footed cylinder form you've developed with this piece works very well with Ash, and I feel it would also work quite well with just about any straight-grained wood which has some definition to its spring/summerwoods.

[Michael Stafford]

Corey, I would guess that is what happened but I cannot be sure. How dry was the wood? I always rough in the body flange so that the lid will start to go on but cannot. Then I hollow the body and sand and finish it. Then I finish fit the body flange so the lid can be jam fit on the body. Then I turn the outside profile, sand and finish. Lastly I adjust the fit of the lid to get a nice suction fit.

By the way, a great looking first box, Corey!

[Dick Parr]

Great looking box Corey.

[Kenneth George]

Well Corey I think you did a great job on your first one. Especially with the wood you choose to make your first one out of as Ash can be a challenge to make a box out of. I am also glad that you found my site of some use as giving people a jump start is why it exists.

On too your issue with the lid, I think I have made about every mistake possible while making boxes. The one thing that will always be killer on a box is the moister content. Normally though that wont bite you until the box has sat for awhile. I think you got it too hot while hogging out the material. If you use a forstner bit to remove material you need to go very slow and clear chips often as it will get very hot very fast. I have gotten to where the final fitting of the lid is the last thing I do prior to the finish.

Ken

[Ernie Nyvall]

Nice job on the box Corey. I missed the ding so it all looks good from here.

Ernie

[Bernie Weishapl]

Hey Corey I think Big Mike told me one time when I did my first box if you don't tell us the mistake it didn't happen. I didn't catch it either till you told us.