Wood Boxes

This is the first box I've ever made. I just jumped right into it, with whatever tools and knowledge I happened to have at the time. And I didn't have many of either, but it turned out really well regardless. Which I think is a testament to the philosophy of "Just do it". What have you got to loose?

I bought a scroll saw. And my first idea was to try and make a box with my new tool. I patterned the scroll work from an image of Mount Timpanogos.  But I used a blade that was too large, and I wasn't able to capture the correct level of detail. I was still happy with it though.

 

I bought this wood called "Birds eye maple". It's maple, with a lot of little marks that look like birds eyes. I thought it would look awesome as a moon, so I built it into my design. I thought the legs of the box would give it a modern look. But instead it came out a little more rustic that I would have liked. I learned later that a "modern" design has angles, and curves. Not just square legs.

My little brother commissioned several ring boxes from me. He had created several rings in his gun smithing class, and thought that they would make great
Christmas presents. I've never made a ring box before, he sent me a design and I took my best whack at it.

I loved the idea of a crushed stone inlay. A ring box was the perfect chance to try it out. I used epoxy as the filler.

After I finished the ring boxes for my brother, I had this great idea for another one. I agonized over the design, and I started to doubt whether it would actually turn out. all in all, I think I am happy with it.

At this stage is where I started to seriously doubt my design. I thought the crushed black stone in the background was way too shiny. And the texture was way too different from the wood.  But at that point I was stuck, and there wasn't much that I could do to fix it. So I pressed forward with my original design, hoping that maybe it would turn out better than I expected.

  

And it did! Once I mixed it with epoxy, and sanded the stone down, it mellowed out, and I was really happy with the final design. I used tiny magnets in each of the corers to keep the top on. And I used the birds eye maple again as the background moon.