Maybe a touch of overkill

So … I finished my first project since the shoulder surgery. I’m not by any means all the way back to full strength, especially in certain shoulder-heavy moves (like lifting my arm?), but I have enough two-handed ability to be safe with power tools and handle limited stock sizes.

I thought ahead for this, maybe too much, and decided my first projects should be small, simple, useful things for around the house. First on the list was a box to hold tea. Right now we have a myriad of different teas in different boxes and the counter is kind of a mess, so I thought this might clean it up.

Since I had a lot of time where all I could do was plan projects, I naturally turned to SketchUp to draw a plan. And another plan. And another plan. Finally I came up with this:

That seemed like what I wanted — a lid that flips up, and a drawer below. Simple. (Spoilers: I ended up redesigning it on the fly, in the shop.)

I had some hickory left over from fall projects, and I’d bought some paduak at Woodcraft before my surgery because I thought it would be fun to work with an exotic. So those would be my primary woods, with hickory making up the main body and paduak the top and side accents and a drawer pull.

Getting this wood through the planer was easy enough, the boards were only 4 feet long and already planed to 3/4 inch. I resawed it to get 1/2 inch and the remainder piece of about 3/16, though by the time I got it all smooth things were closer to 7/16 and 1/8. I made bookmatched panels out of the very thin stock and cut the rest to form a frame for the top.

Then I took the hickory, which I resawed and bookmatched to make a 3/8″ thick panel long enough to do a grain wrap around the entire box. This turned out to be a blessing and a curse, because when I realized I could do that it suddenly made zero sense to be covering up the grain match with legs and Z-shaped trim on the sides.

After more thought, I cut out some more 1/2″ thick paduak to make a bottom — I had plenty of bookmatched paduak for three panels — but then thought the box was too plain. With only 3/8 of an inch thickness, keys or splines didn’t seem like a good idea. Maybe some artwork to adorn the front? I googled and came up with an interesting pattern of a tea bag and its tag. It needed some work to fit the area I had in mind, but I ran a test or two on scrap plywood, and came out with a result I liked.

Okay, now I could get serious. The hickory got cut into the sides, and dadoes made for a middle shelf and an upper divider. I cut panels for the top and bottom and laid it all out.

But before I could assemble anything, I needed to carve the image onto what would become the front panel and drawer front. I don’t like using vCarve, but that’s the only thing my Shark CNC works with, so I blew the cobwebs off my CNC skills and spent way too long on this simple carving … but it does kinda of make the project.

With that done I carefully cut the drawer front on the bandsaw to minimize the kerf, and just hand-planed the edges smooth. That worked nicely and didn’t interrupt the simple sketch too much.

The main body could then be glued up, and I turned my attention to the drawer. Since I was working with 5/16″ material and no good way to fasten it at the front, I decided to use box joints and a false front. And since I had just acquired the new Katz Moses box joint jig, it was a good opportunity to try center-keyed box joints. They worked out well, and allowed me to add the drawer front easily.

The grain match was particularly striking on one part of my panel, so I featured that on the top of the box and recessed it 1/8 inch to give it some framing. A simple edge treatment on the top and bottom completed them, and it was time for a lot of sanding.

I opted for Arm-R-Seal for the finish, and dabbed it into the carving to make sure it was all covered but not over-covered. I installed a few rubber feet on the bottom and hinges to the lid, and it was done.

Takeaways? I wish I’d made it a little smaller, but I’m very happy with the overall looks of it. The hickory contrasts nicely with the paduak, and the simple line drawing carved into the front looks really nice. And, of course, it was really good to be back in the shop. :^)

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