My Journey in Writing, Ranting, and Woodworking

The day in woodworking was a short one.  Actually, I did quite a lot since yesterday’s post, but most of it was last night after the blog went up.  Today was a travel day, as I am once again heading to my parents for the weekend.  It has been 25 years since I graduated high school.  This weekend the Ames High Class of 1985 will gather to catch up.  Tonight there are a number of us gather at a local watering hole, which isn’t under water.  So the post will be a short one.

I took pictures of the first four boxes which have made it into box form.  The first two were destroyed during the side cutting phase.  Box one looks nice, but the lid is loose, the bottom is not so great.  Box two was slightly worse.  Box three is better by a long shot, but the lid seems a bit thin.  Box 4 ROCKS!  The lid is tight, the bottom is pretty good, the joints are tight, and the padauk looks good with the maple.

I have learned a good deal along the way.  I am better at cutting, thanks to Jeff.  The routing for the bottoms and the tops is smoother and more accurate.  I realized last night, that if I route the top and get close to the lines, but not all the way, I can quickly clean up the last tiny smidgeon with Manfred the chisel.  This worked much  better.  I also learned that I like the look of the lids a bit more, with some extra rounding on the edges, and the thickness seems better than box 3.

I have also gotten a much defter touch using Dusty the belt sander, while he is on his jig.  The key is to not press too hard, take three passes, then rotate the piece.  This seems to help avoid sanding too much off one end.  I still have 10 more boxes to complete through the lid fitting phase, and then it will be time for doing the splines.  That should be exciting.

For those who are curious, the piece of oak which I applied Danish Oil too, came out really nice.  I have to admit that I don’t really care too much for the look of this particular finish, but it covered evenly, and it appears to have done exactly what it was supposed to do.  I am very encouraged by the results, even if the look isn’t really to my taste.  I think the next test will be the tung oil.

A reader pointed out something, which I think is very interesting.  Since my tiny boxes aren’t really going to be abused, they probably don’t need a finish which will protect the wood.  This seems incredibly logical to me.  So it begs the question, why finish it wish something to make the wood shiny, when I could just polish the wood to 1500 grit, and leave it bare?

I would love to hear any thoughts on this subject.  And now here are some pictures of the tiny boxes that I have made thus far.

Box 1

Box 2

Box 3

Box 4