What I leaned from the Tiny Oak Box

The tiny oak box has been completed. Well, as much as I intend to complete it. It took me 5 days, though I didn’t really work at a fevered pitch, it was still much quicker than the 3 weeks of the first box. Here is a breakdown of how I did.

The cutting of the pieces, was much improved. The accuracy was better than the tiny walnut box.  Because I was able to do it with Jeff the bandsaw, I didn’t need to use my router table to clean up each cut. This made the process much simpler. I also did a better job of cutting the groove for the bottom.

The bottom is not an improvement, the fit is slightly worse than the previous box. I can’t really give a good explanation as to why I took too much off with one of the cuts, but I did. I used a 1/8″ bit for router the bottom and a 3/4″ bit for router the top. The 3/4″ seemed to work better. For the next box I think I will use the larger one and probably a better result.

The glue up went fine, until I broke the belt clamp. This was during the stage where I connected the two halves which I had previous glued up. My crazy system, which isn’t worth describing, of clamping after the belt clamp disaster, was rather lame. It resulted in a two really poor fit.

Overall it is a slightly worse box than the tiny walnut box. I am not too disappointed though, as I really don’t care for oak, and like everything I am doing now, it is all practice. So I may start another box, same style, same methodology, and we will see if I can get everything right.

As I look at the tiny oak box, it is possible I could simply pull the offending joints apart and then glue them up again. I may do that, I might not. I haven’t decided. It really isn’t that important that this box become spectacular. This may seem strange to some and I don’t know how many woodworkers approach the early stages of their woodworking.

There is one part of me, which wants to keep the boxes as they are, as a record of where I was as a woodworker. There is something valuable in having the blunders available, to use as a measuring stick. I do know this, I am enjoying my hobby.