Making A Walnut Trunk Storage Box

[Music] in this video I'll be building a story instruct why over to Keith in the bedroom to explain more thanks Keith welcome to my bedroom where the magic happens over here as you can see we've got an old sink unit I don't know why it was here when we moved in and as you can see it's no longer got a sink in it it's a pretty ugly cabinet and it doesn't match any of our other furniture in the bedroom like our bedside tables or this appealing chest of drawers which I found by some bins a few years ago and restored in a project video on my channel so this think unit has got to go the only problem is in the bottom section is the access to our stocked app which is our water supply into the property and that obviously needs to remain accessible so I want to build something to sit in front of that tap and hide it something that will complement our existing furniture I had some offcuts of walnut veneered MDF to use up one piece was 13 millimeters thick and one piece 19 millimeters thick these pieces were left over from a dartboard cabinet commissioned I did a while back for a client I'm going to use the 13 millimeter material to make the side and front panels of the box and here I'm cutting the panels to width at the table saw unfortunately I didn't have quite enough to make a normal box the size I wanted so I decided I'd make a three-sided box instead with no back panel here I'm choosing which of the face veneers I want visible on the outside of the box and then I can decide where to cut the ends for the front panel because I wanted the grain on the front panel to be kind of symmetrical I [Music] tilt the track sort at 45 degrees and then I can cut the miters and I'm using my toes here so that none of the MDF endgrain will be visible on the box for the glue up I laid out all of the panels end-to-end outside faces up and then applied masking tape then I could flip it all over and apply glue to the joints I can then fold the joints together and I use my plywood clamping squares to get the corners to 90 degrees and I can wipe away the excess glue with a damp cloth I've just realized I've made a mistake I cut my toes on both sides of the side panels as if I was making a four-sided mitered box why I should have done this cut the front edge at 45 degrees and the back edge at 90 degrees so that it would butt up to the wall while I didn't have enough of the 13 millimeter MDF to make a full back panel I do have this off cut so I think I'm going to cut a panel to go at the top here and that's also going to give me something to secure the box to the wall I'll use Brad nails to secure the back panel and some claps to get it positioned correctly the miter joints came out really nice and tight which is great so the box wouldn't have been particularly strong at this point so to reinforce it I took some of these 20 millimeter square mahogany strips these are glazing beads I think and these were given to me a while back I can just cut them to length at the miter saw and glue them into the corners and I can use Brad nails from the inside as that way I don't need to worry about filling any nail holes later I also added more of these pieces around the top and bottom of the box and also added an upright in the center and now the box is going to be really nice and strong next I went looking for some wood to use to trim the outside edges of the box and I found some pieces of what looks like teak but could be Iroko I'm not actually sure I hadn't a bit of moisture to get an idea of what color it would be what's finished and they had quite an amber color tone to it and I wasn't sure if that would work well against the walnut but I knew I could always stain it later if necessary so I ripped some strips down to about 8 millimeters thick and then I ran them through the thickness planer to get them cleaned up and this wood is very nice-looking stuff I clean up the edges at the table saw and then I can start marking up where to make the cuts to miter the trim and you'll see here that I'm cutting this in a way so that the grain of the wood continues all of the way around the perimeter of the box so that should look really cool before adding the trim I did some sanding by hand at 240 grit and then glued the pieces in place using spring clamps to hold them I also added a couple of other clamps just to make sure the mitered corners came together nicely while waiting for the glue to dry I figured I'd removed the old bathroom cabinet from the bedroom and this is where I found three issues firstly the carpet wasn't laid underneath the cabinet I had hoped that it was but I had suspected that it wasn't well that's okay I could just make a bottom for the box later on secondly I had noticed earlier when the cabinet was in place that there were signs that the stopcock tap had been leaking I couldn't really figure out why it was leaking and obviously I'm not a plumber but I was feeling brave so I went and bought a new stopcock isolated the water supply to the house and then fitted it I used some PTFE tape just to be on the safe side and that completely resolved the leak issue and thirdly oh okay we might have a problem I haven't realized that these pipes went as high up as they did and I'm not sure if the trunk is going to cover that so I'm just going to bring it in and do a test fit okay so this point does sit above where the lid is going to finish but probably only by maybe 10 or 20 millimeters the thing is I'm not even sure if this pipe here is needed I don't know what it does or where it goes to so I'll probably need to speak to a plumber about that aside from that I think it's going to be okay I just need to cut a little bit out of the back panel to fit around the tap and then we should be good next I could start making the lid and that took a few measurements I'd use this piece of nineteen millimeter MDF for the and here I'd already cut it to the right width next I set up a straight edge so that I can route out a housing groove down the length of the inside of the lid I used a 12 millimeter cutter in the router I cut it to about 16 millimeters deep by taking multiple passes going a little deeper each time I then marked up a piece of the wood that I used for the trim which ordered to cut to fit inside the groove and I'll explain why a little bit later I decided to use polyurethane glue for this as it will foam up nicely to help fill any small gaps and here I'm dabbing on some water which helps the glue to adhere better I can then fit it in place and clamp it down once it was dry I used my block plane to bring it down flush and when it was closed I started using a card scraper to make sure that I wouldn't damage the veneer I could then position the lid where I wanted it and scribe pencil lines at both ends and then line up my track to make the cuts and here you can see how that glue has phoned up to fill most of the gaps so looked nice and tight so yeah I'll explain why I added this piece of solid wood down the length of the lid in a little while next I set the table saw fence using a piece of the nineteen millimeter MDF and then I can rip some more of the wood that I'm using for the trim so that it's the perfect width to trim the edges of the lid once again I cut miters to the ends and I bleed the pieces in place but this time I'm using masking tape to hold it in place the stuff I use is from Amazon and it's quite stretchy which makes it ideal for glue ups like this because you can really pull them in tight again I added a couple of clamps at the corners just to get tight joints I used the block plane and scraper to bring the trim down flush with the lid and then it was on to sanding and the MDF didn't need much sanding at all so I did it all by hand using 240 grit paper that way I didn't need to worry about sanding through the veneer I did hit the solid wood trims with some 120 grit because it needed a little bit of extra sanding and then I followed that with 240 and then it was on to my favorite part applying finish and for this I'm using shellac I chose it because it really pops the grain really nicely and it dries really quickly allowing you to continue with the project I used to use boiled linseed oil a lot for this but it takes a day or two to cure before I can apply a topcoat of a wall - based finish whereas shellac dries in only a few minutes and it really makes the wood look amazing I mentioned earlier the possibility of staining the solid wood trim to better match the walnut but actually I really liked the amber color of the solid wood against the walnut there is a bit of a technique to applying shellac it's trickier than oil because you really have to make sure you maintain a wet edge with the finish while applying it and you have to be careful not to overwork it while it's starting to cure - because that can cause issues and it's also really important not to let it drip or run now back to that piece of solid wood in the housing groove on the underside of the lid that I added earlier I marked up a center point just by eye and then I can line up my tracks or track - that mark off setting it slightly to account for the curve of the blade and then I can make a cut down the length of the lid [Applause] this is going to be where I attach a hinge and I got this piano hinge on eBay it was about the right length I just needed to trim a little bit off the end with a hacksaw and then file away the burr now to explain the reason for gluing in that strip of hard wood I did that because it'll give something solid for the screws to bite into screwing into the edges of MDF usually makes it split even after drilling a pilot hole for the screws so this piece of wood is going to stop that happening I secured the hinge to the smaller parts of the lid first then I closed the hinge and added a few dabs of hot glue I could then offer it up to the larger part of the lid making sure that the face and edges were all flush and awaited a few seconds for the glue to grab then I can carefully open up the hinge and secure the other side later on I unscrewed this side again so that I could remove all of the beads of hot glue and then secure it again I add the lid on top of the box and hold it in place over back with a couple of clamps and then I can secure the smaller part of the lid to the box from underneath so like I said earlier I wasn't planning on making a bottom for the box but because of the missing piece of carpet I figured I'd better add one so after measuring up and finding a piece of plywood that was big enough I cut it to size I have a table saw this piece is salvaged and one face is painted as you can see but I'm just going to use that face downwards so no one will see the paint I can then place it inside and mark up some notches to fit around the frame of the box I cut those out with the jigsaw then I gave it a quick sanding and secured it using some Brad nails next I apply the top coat of spray varnish this is just going to add a nice Sheen to the box and make it more hard-wearing after applying the first coat I'm waiting for it to dry I D lived with 400 grit wet and dry paper and then wiped away the dust and applied a second and final coat so that's the trunk finished and I removed a bit of material out of the back panel so that it could fit around the stopcock I also added another piece of MDF to close the rest of the back hopefully eventually I can get a plumber to sort out the pipes behind the trunk so that I can push it back closer to the wall and eventually I want to secure it either to the floor or to the wall so that it can't be moved around my biggest mistake on this project was not removing the old cabinet first to see what the pipes were like behind the cabinet before starting the build I really should have done that first so that I knew I had to contend with there were a lot of compromises with this build due to the lack of walnut MDF they had available that's just the way it is when you're working with offcuts and I really didn't fancy paying 70 pounds or whatever for another sheet so I could make a full back panel although it would have been nicer but despite that I think the trunk is actually really good looking I'm really happy with how it turned out we're going to use it to store some spare bed sheets and stuff like that but it can also be used as a seat and we'll probably add a couple of cushions on top at some point to temporarily hide the pipe at the back until we can get that sorted out I hope you enjoyed this project please subscribe to my channel for more weekly woodworking videos if you'd like to show your support for the channel you can do that by a patreon or PayPal and there's links to those in the description box below on patreon you can also get early access to my videos exclusive content free project plans and cut and a name credit at the end of my videos thank you for watching [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Rag 'n' Bone Brown

Views: 30,564

Rating: 4.9444108 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, uk, british, youtuber, rag, 'n', bone, brown, keith, salvaged, reclaimed, wood, make, making, how, to, ragnbonebrown, diy, walnut, storage, storage trunk, walnut trunk, walnut box, bedroom, home decor, home renovation, woodworking projects, woodworking for beginners, handmade, diy wood projects, diy wood furniture, furniture design, furniture projects, furniture projects ideas, storage box, woodworking for mere mortals, mdf, veneered, iroko

Id: aPg6CpkdKwU

Length: 15min 10sec (910 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020