Extremely Average

All of the tiny boxes have been enjoying Henry’s company over the long weekend.  On Tuesday, he will be off to his new home.  I had some errands to run, so I left the gang all hanging out with Henry and he was regaling them with stories.  When I returned I found half the boxes in a circle, with two candles burning, and they were all chanting.

I stood there for a little while, they didn’t notice me.  Alice stopped chanting, blushed a little, and said, “Hey, you’re back.”

“Yes…so…Whatcha all doing?”, I asked.

Henry cleared his throat, “Well, you see, I was explaining to my new friends, how our souls….”

The hard maple and walnut box chimed in excitedly, “He was showing us how to remember our past!  It takes concentration and practice, but I think it is starting to work”  Then he hopped around a bit and continued, “Henry explained that if we get good at it, we will be able to remember all the way back to the beginning.”

Henry then smiled and continued, “Yes, it is a matter of focus and meditation.  When we move our souls between the objects we live in, we sometimes forget the past.  Old souls, like mine, have long since mastered the art of remembering.  My new friends here are mostly new souls, and have not been shown how to see their history.”

“Well that is quite interesting.  How does it work?”, I asked.

“It is hard to explain.  But for those of us, with souls of the forest, we are able to remember our past, if we meditate.”  Henry said, then started to chant again.

The maple and walnut box was far too excited to go back to meditating.  The other boxes were enjoying his exuberance and Alice said, “Go on, tell him what we learned about you.”

He looked at me, then at the group, who all encouraged him to go ahead.  I don’t think he truly needed the encouragement.  He started with a grand flourish, “We were all chanting, everyone was focused on bringing the past back to us.  Henry explained that if we do it together it can help.  Well the first person’s past which showed up, was mine!  Everyone could see me, and though I looked a bit different, we all knew it was me.”

“You looked a bit different?”  I said, my curiosity peaked.

“Yes, I wasn’t a tiny box, back then.  I was a small wooden bowl.”

“He was quite lovely.”  Alice remarked.

“Thanks.” said the maple and walnut box, and then continued with his story, “I was a little bowl, named Claude.  I guess I am still named Claude?”  He looked at Henry, not sure exactly how it all worked.

Henry smiled, “Yes, you are still Claude.”

Claude made a clapping noise, though I am not sure how, and continued on with his story, “So I found out that when my soul came to be, it was in that tiny walnut bowl.  But that isn’t all!  This is the best part.  Do you know the artist Eugene Delacroix?”

“I do!  I love his work.  The Corcoran Gallery in DC has Tiger and Snake, 1862.  I gave a presentation about it, during my docent training.  Were you his bowl?”  I said making my own clapping noise.  I was now as giddy as the rest of the boxes.

“Well no.  I was the tiny bowl of his maid Beatrice.  But I got to know a bunch of his paint brushes really well, and was great friends with a side board he had in his hallway.  It was a lovely place to live.  I remember so much about those days in the 1800′s, but all of the time between then and now is blank.”

Henry chimed in, “Well don’t worry Claude, it will become easier, the more you practice.  Sometimes it can be hard to remember the last moments, before your soul leaves the wood you call home, and heads off to find a new home.”

“Why would the soul leave?”  I asked.

“When an object is destroyed, the soul doesn’t disappear, it moves on.  That being said, there are pieces of furniture and frames on art, which have been around for many hundreds of years.  I knew a frame around a lovely little Degas, which was a delightful fellow.  He will likely live for hundreds of more years, protected in the museum.”

“Henry, you have been an amazing little box.  I am so glad your soul found us.”  I said.

“Thank-you kind sir.  I am glad you made me!”

“I will let you all get back to your fun, but before I do, have any of you decided if you would like to be adopted?”

Claude, still bouncing around with excitement, almost yelled, “Yes, me.  I would love to head out into the world!  It sounds fun.”

Everyone clapped, though I was the only one who seemed to have hands.  I made a mental note to ask about that sometime.  “Ok, well then, Henry, would you mind taking your little meditation circle over to the table, so I can get some shots of Claude?”

“Not at all.  Come on gang, let’s go.”

Claude stayed and we took a few shots of him, for the Etsy store.  While I took the photos, he continued to tell me stuff he could remember from his days as a tiny bowl in the hall of Eugene Delacroix’s maid.  He really loves art.  He told me all about the artists he liked.  He had learned a bunch from the paint brushes.  He also sensed that there had been art, or art books, in his previous life, but it wasn’t clear to him.  He just knew that he liked it.

If you would like to adopt Claude, you may do so at my Etsy store.  http://www.etsy.com/listing/55616859/claude-the-tiny-box

Several weeks ago I purchased some pure Tung oil, and was disappointed to learn it wasn’t going to do what I had expected.  The nagging voice in the back of my head kept telling me, “Go ahead, try it.  All the cool kids use Tung oil in their woodworking.”  This logic was hard to argue with.  Having read countless blogs, forum posts, and even the comments on this blog, it did appear that everyone loves Tung.

Learning finishing, like woodworking, is not a simple task.  I decided that there were two good reasons to give the Tung oil a try.  The first, and most obvious reason was that I already had some.  The second was that since I had a dozen boxes, it seemed only appropriate to try it on one of them.  That was part of the point of building twelve boxes in the first place, to give me the opportunity to try out different building methods and to experiment with finishes.

I realize that I said I wasn’t going to finish the boxes.  I believe I had decided to just sand them to 1500 grit.  This would make them shiny and not risk screwing any of them up.  Last night I changed my mind.  I asked for volunteers.  Many of the boxes are still awaiting their lids, and as everyone knows, they don’t start to talk until they have the tops.  But there were 5 of them hanging out at my desk, one with a beautiful padauk lid, a couple made from oak and walnut, one from hard maple with a wenge lid, and brash young hard maple and walnut box.

The hard maple box immediately spoke up, “I will volunteer for the mission.”  He said with a bravado which made the padauk lidded box snicker.  The other boxes quickly encouraged me to pick the hard maple box.  I quickly realized two things.  One was that the box who volunteered would be named Major.  In fact, he would be named Major and given the rank of Major, in the tiny box army.  Though his personality is nothing like Major Major Major Major from Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22′, I felt a fondness for him, just as I do for that book.

The other boxes were thrilled to have not been chosen.  I realized another thing shortly after naming the tiny box, that it would make me much sadder if I screwed him up.  So a test was in order.  I had a nice 3 inch square piece of oak, which I had saved for just such an emergency.

I read the instructions, which were quite simple.  Opened the doors and windows in the house, to get good ventilation.  Cut up an old Detroit Red Wings t-shirt, which was past its prime.  Reread the instructions one more time, then diluted a small amount of Tung oil in a 4:1 ratio.

I wiped the Tung oil onto the test piece, a thin and even coat, and the tiny piece of oak looked pretty good.  I waited the 15 minutes suggested on the can, and then wiped it down.  I have to admit that my first thoughts were exactly what everyone says, “It really makes the wood grain pop.”  It did too!

Major was standing at attention and ready to go into finishing battle.  I started with the lid, which I had sanded down to 32o grit.  His lid had been sanded to 1500, but the instructions said to sand to 360, and since 320 was the closest I had, I went with that.  Wiping the Tung oil across the walnut lid made the wood look rich and inviting.  The box was next and the oil really made the splines look nice.  Major said, when I was done, “I think the Tung oil quite suits me.”  All the other boxes admired his new look too, even the one with the bubinga lid.

I have been playing around with tiny boxes for a couple of months now.  Major is the first one I have completed.  I set him on the book shelf, not far from Joseph Heller’s work.  He looks good there.  Though there are many more to complete, I feel a certain level of satisfaction at finishing this first one.  But I can’t bask in the glory for too long, as I now have a small pack of tiny boxes who all want Tung oil.  They are getting noisy.

The jury is back from their deliberations.  They have found that those helpful readers who suggested I try tape for my tiny box glue up, were right on the mark.  This was my third tiny box glue up and all the seams look really nice.  Thanks for the tip gang!

For those of you who are not aware of the tape of the box method, I will break it down for you.

Step 1:  line the pieces up so that the grain runs the length of the box.  When the box is glued up, the grain will run around the edges and look really cool.  Those who notice this detail will think you are extraordinary clever.  They will likely want to heap praise upon you, which will feel nice, so it is definitely worth the effort.

Step 2:  Use packing tape, as it holds really well and doesn’t leave much residue.  Cut a tiny piece of tape and place it over the edges of each piece.  There are three seams which will get tape initially, as the fourth seam isn’t taped until after the glue is applied.

Step 3:  Eat cookie.

Step 4:  After checking that there aren’t any cookie crumbs in the way, apply the glue to the bevel edges, not the bottom of the box, as the bottom should ‘float’.  You should let the box float for two reasons, everyone told me to (now I am telling you), and it will allow for wood expansion.

Step 5:  Fold the box together and clean up any squeeze out.  Apply a piece of tape across the last seam.

Step 6:  This may be overkill, but I then applied two clamps across the box, for added pressure.  Since the box turned out so well, I think I will do it in the future.

I let the box sit for about an hour and a half, but that is because I ran into Cedar Rapids to buy some cheese and sand paper.  It is probably fine to remove the tape and clamps after about 30 minutes.  When I was done I ran each box face over some 400 grit sandpaper and then used the burnisher to round the edges.

It should be noted that before I glued up the box, I sanded each piece to 400 grit, so the after glue up, the additional sanding was merely to remove the slight stickiness from the tape.

The next step is to sand the remaining 11 boxes and glue them up.  This is a lengthy process and requires a lot of TV and cookies, but I am up for it.  Of course, I will need to hustle and get through this step as quickly as possible, as nobody wants to read 11 more blogs about gluing up tiny boxes.  So I better get back to work.

Jury Dismissed.

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.