Woodwork Project: Curved Front Wooden Box With Lid

[Music] hello in this project i'm making a wooden box with a curved front the first thing i need to do is to make a former for the curve i'm using a bit of old softwood construction timber to do this [Applause] i'm going to cut it to length first of all and then i mark up the shape of the curve first of all by finding the center line i want the box front to be parallel with the back of the box at the edges so that i can make it nice and square so i'm going to mark in from the edge of the former to make sure that the curve only affects the center part i use the lid from an old chocolate tin to mark in the curve and with the curve all marked up it's over to the bandsaw to cut the shape next i cut some thin strips of sapele on the bandsaw these strips are going to be laminated together inside the former to form the curved front of the box i make the strips as narrow as i can manage with my bandsaw in this case it's somewhere around about a millimeter and there are my strips i cover the inside of the former with furniture wax this has two jobs one it will stop any glue sticking to the inside of the former and sticking my job to the former and secondly it will allow the laminate strips a little bit of lubrication so that they can move easily to find their form i cover one side of my laminate strip with a decent amount of glue i use a brush to apply it to make sure that i get a complete coverage i place a first unglued strip on the former and then take my glued strip and place it on top from here on in i apply more glue and add them directly to the next level when everything's glued up i put them in the former and clamp them up in the vise i do this job at the end of the day so i don't need my vice and i can leave the to glue up overnight so the next day i can remove everything from the vise split performer and there's my curved front i give it a sanding now as it'll be easier to sand especially the inside of the curve at this stage rather than when the box is complete i start off with the fairly rough sandpaper and move up to a smooth one i squared off the bottom and top edge of the front using a plane apology so i forgot to film that bit i then mark up where i want to trim the front equidistant from the center point of the curve i just trimmed this up using the mitre saw [Applause] and there's my front ready to go next i need to make the back of the box and i want this to be exactly the same length as the front so i'll use the front as a reference to mark this up i mark the length using a knife and then complete that mark using the square using a chisel i cut in against a knife wall creating a guide for my saw after doing this i immediately sharpened my chisel because as you can see it's not quite sharp enough and then i cut the rear of the box to length using a tenon saw i then prepare the surface using a number four smoothing plane and there we have the front and the back of the box the same length now there's a disparity in height there i need them to be the same height so i'll mark the height of the front of the box on the rear i use a square to mark in that height and then use a plane to get it down to the line [Music] and there we have it a matching front and back next i need to make the sides so i cut a piece off a length of cepely it's quite wide so i'll get both ends off of this same block and i'll use the band saw to sort this in half and there's the two ends at this point i label everything up because i'm going to make my cuts on the job referencing the pieces in order to get the measurements rather than measuring from scratch i want to make sure that i've always got the pieces in the same orientation in order to fit the front and back to the sides i'm going to use a housing joint or a dado i think you call it in north america i mark in a common distance for the outside of the housing and then i align the front of the box up against this initial mark so that i can mark the required width of the housing or dado i square the mark across making sure i always reference the same end next i'm going to cut out the waste material from the housing and i do this using a chisel and i walk across the length of the housing relying on the knife marks to form the edge and the bevel of the chisel to move the waste material out of the way i'm choking up on the chisel to make sure that i don't go too deep at this point with the material loosened i can now make stabbing motions across the housing to remove that material and i can repeat this process until i get down to depth i'll keep offering up the front of the box to the housing to make sure it's a nice tight fit as i get to depth i use a router plane this is actually a miniature router plane the iron on my main router plane is too wide for this particular housing i can actually remove all of the material just using a chisel but the router plane allows me to set a depth which i can then use across all of my housings to make sure it has a uniform depth and this really helps to make sure the box is square when i put it together i then repeat this process with all of the housings and as you can see they have a nice tight joint in there so i'll just do an initial dry assembly and that fits together nicely with the front and back and the sides all flush against the bench i can measure the disparity between the height of the sides and the front here i'm using lollipop or popsicle sticks and i can see there's a height disparity of the depth of four sticks here now in the finished construction i'm going to use the sides as tenons and fit those into mortises cut into the base and the collar of the box i want the sides of the box to be proud of the front and back of both the top and the bottom so with a disparity of the depth of four ice lolly or popsicle sticks i make some spaces by taping two sticks together i make sure i use a similar amount of tape on both spaces so as not to have them uneven although we're not talking about engineering tolerances here the width of a piece of tape is not going to make much difference in the end box with the stasis completed i tape them onto the back and front of the box oops i've put that down upside down that's better with the spaces taped on i can now do another dry assembly and this time the sides of the box should stick out the bottom and the top by roughly the same distance that looks good so i'll just glue it up after pushing the parts together i'll check for square this job is really made a lot easier by making sure that the housings are all cut to the same depth i can make minor adjustments to get it square by pushing in the diagonal plane when i'm happy i clamp that all up and keep checking for square throughout i'll also check for square at the sides of the box looks good so i'll leave that to glue up and here we are a day later i'll just remove the spacers and that's our basic box frame ready to go so next we need to cut the base and the collar so i'll measure up the required length on this piece of beach i want the overhang to be equidistant on the sides and the front by about six mil in this case so i'll mark that up accordingly and chop to length [Applause] again my wood is thicker than i need so i re-saw into two equal halves using the bandsaw and there i have the parts for my base and collar same thickness there so i just surface plane them to get them nice and smooth i just check everything's nice and square using the edge of the plane okay so with the base cut i start to mark up where the box is going to go now the process i use here is to do an initial markup in pencil this is to give me a guide as to how it should all fit so i draw in all those lines with the square so it's completely marked up now i mark up my first mortise using the knife at this stage i'm only going to mark up the first mortise i'm going to cut i'm going to leave the markings at the other end of the box purely as pencil marks i use a square to complete these markings and i want to get them fairly deep because i'm going to use these knife marks as the walls to the mortise so in a similar way to the way that i cut the housings or dados i'm going to cut these mortises by walking the chisel along the length removing material as i go i don't want to go too deep at this stage now that some of the material is removed i can move along the edge of the mortise hole using a wider chisel if i did that job before removing the initial material the bevel on the wider chisel would force the chisel back into the wood and that would essentially make my mortise hole wider than it needed to be the job now is just to work back and forth along the length of the mortise removing material until i'm down to depth when i'm somewhere close i fit the tenon the edge of the box into the mortise hole and make sure everything lines up now that i'm sure this is all square i can mark up the second mortise you can see that it's pretty close to the initial pencil mark but it is slightly different marking up these mortises one at a time and marking the second mortise by referencing fitting in the first mortise make sure that everything fits snugly and then i repeat the process to remove the material from the second mortise let's do a dry assembly and that fits nicely it just needs to go a little deeper so i'll keep working to get down to depth quick tap to make sure it's home and that looks much better perfect now i repeat that exact same process with the collar which fits on the top of the box the secret here is to get the sides nice and crisp and then to get an even depth the attention to detail here makes it a lot easier to get everything square in the final fitting and that looks like it fits nicely too the next job is to shape the base of the box i want the base to follow the curve of the front to mark this up i use a washer on my pencil i place the pencil on the inside of the washer and trace the outline of the box it's a bit like the old children's toy spirograph this way i've got a line ecwid distance from the front of the box i then use the bandsaw to cut out the shape [Music] i start to smooth off the shape using a spoke shave i then finish off by working up through grades of sandpaper to sand into the corners i found another use for the lollipop stick or popsicle stick i wrapped some sandpaper around it and this makes for a handy improvised small file [Laughter] another quick dry assembly and that's starting to look pretty good so next i need to repeat that process with the collar at the top of the box once again i use the washer to trace the outside shape of the box this time i also mark up the inside of the box as i need to remove that material otherwise the box will be sealed top and bottom first of all i cut the outside shape on the bandsaw and shape and smooth it as before now i need to remove the material in the middle of this collar and so to give myself room to work i use a force and a bit of my drill press to cut a few holes people who are more skilled with the band store can probably miss out this step but for me i wanted to make sure i had plenty of room to maneuver [Music] so with that initial material removed i cut in from the side of the box and then start tracing the inner mark [Applause] we can see here that that hole done with the forstner bit gives me a bit of room to maneuver especially turning at the corners the saw cut in from the side where the bandsaw entered i'll fill later once i've glued the collar on once again a lollipop stick wrapped in sandpaper to help with the sanding and then some sandpaper wrapped around a pencil this time to maintain the rounded corners so with everything cut to shape and sanded i first glue up the collar of the box i don't glue the base of the box on at the same time as i still need access to the inside of the collar so i clamp on the collar and leave the glue to dry now the reason i didn't glue the bottom of the box on at this stage is because i want to make a lid for the box and in order for the lid to stay secure i want the inside of the lid to be molded to the inside of the collar so invert the box and mark up the inside of the collar on the material i'm going to use to form the inside of the lid i then cut the shape on the bandsaw and then sand it [Applause] now this shape needs to fit inside the collar but not so tightly that it gets stuck that's perfect so i can now glue on the base of the box and i can clamp that up and leave it once again to complete the lid i'm going to use this thinner piece of sapele i'm going to mount the shape that we cut that fits in the recess to the underside of this this will give us a lid which sits flush with the top of the collar and the shape we cut before will sit nicely in the recess and keep the lid secure now i want my finished lid to be equidistant from all edges of the box so i'm just spending some time here to measure up to make sure i've got everything in the right position in order to do this the piece shaped to the recess of the collar will be biased towards the front of the lid i cut the lid down so it's nearer to the finished length although i do leave it to overhang slightly because then i can trim up to make things a perfect match later [Music] this tenon saw's a little bit too big for this job so next thing i'll do is glue this up i'll get a little heavy-handed with the glue pot here and put on far too much but i was able to rescue the situation and scrape some off in order to keep everything in position while i'm clamping up i use some masking tape this stops the pieces floating against each other on the layer of glue i have also used the technique in the past where i add a little bit of salt to the glue to add some friction and to reduce the tendency to float while that's gluing up i use my block plane to round off the corners of the box with such a nice rounded front i wanted to make sure there wasn't too big a contrast by having some very sharp square edges i work around all the corners of the box by maneuvering the box within the vise this allows me to keep my body in pretty much the same position so i've got more chance of having a more uniform stroke and i finish off those corners with the sanding at this stage is as good a time as any to give the whole box a nice finishing sanding i work through various grades of sandpaper up to about a 240 grit [Music] [Music] so with the glue dry on the lid it's time to do a final fitting next i use another lollipop or popsicle stick again to make a marker i line up the edge of the popsicle stick with a recess and mark the edge of the box this is the widest that the flange is going to be i drill a hole at that distance and make sure my pencil fits in it and then i use this to follow the curve i couldn't use the washer in this instance because it wasn't the right size once again i cut the shape on the bandsaw and give it a nice sanding so it's getting pretty close now so the next job is to make sure that the edges of the lid are uniform distance from both ends of the box and i want to maintain that distance at the front and back also so i mock that up and trim them off i use the block plane once again to get a nice rounded edge on the box lid and use sandpaper just to finish off the curve and get it nice and smooth [Music] almost there in this state it's not particularly easy to get the lid off the box you have to get your nails under the edge and pull it up so what it really needs is a handle and i've got this scrap of beach that i thought i'd make a handle from i cut it somewhere closer to a usable size then i'm going to mark up a shape sympathetic to the shape of the box that way i can carry the style through [Music] once again i use the bandsaw to cut the shape [Music] and i use a file and sandpaper to round everything off at this stage i couldn't really get the balance correct the handle looks far too heavy for the rest of the box so the first thing i've tried was to remove some weight by making the handle thinner but somehow it still didn't seem right or in proportion until caroline suggested i did this and instantly that seems to make a lot more sense in order to make the handle more ergonomic i decided i was going to cut in some thumb recesses so i marked this up on the lid and then used a round back file to strip away some of the material i could then give the handle a final sanding and round off all the sharp edges i marked up the position of the handle on the block slid using a pencil i then used this as a reference to cut some holes to take some screws to screw the handle on i countersunk the holes on the inside of the lid so that the screws fit snugly and i also had room to cover them over using some double-sided tape i temporarily attached the handle to the lid of the box this allowed me to drill some pilot holes into the handle i then screwed the handle onto the lid with the handle attached i can now test how well the lid fits and i can see it's a little bit too tight so using sandpaper i take a small amount of material off the inner of the lid it fits much better now so i'll remove the handle glue it and then re-screw it to finish this off i'll put some filler over the visible screws and sand it all back so that's construction complete and time to do the finishing and i'll do this by putting several layers of danish oil on i'll leave each layer at least six hours to dry and sand back between each layer i love this stage where you can start to see the grain popping out and you can see the contrast in the two tones of wood after i've done all the oil layers i'll finish off with a layer of furniture wax and this is the finished piece i'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out thanks for watching i hope you enjoyed this project video we've got several other project videos on our channel already and there'll be more coming soon so have a look around the channel and if you enjoy what we do please subscribe [Music] you

Channel: Adventures In T-Shirts Woodwork

Views: 183,821

Keywords: woodwork, box, how to, make, wood, work, laminate, curve, band saw, hand tools, woodworker, adventures in t-shirts, carpentry, home made, wood shop, craft, wooden, bent lamination, bent, lamination, bandsaw projects, hand tool woodworking, bandsaw, bandsaw woodworking, small bandsaw, Axminster HBS250N

Id: Svor-w3J-Vw

Length: 38min 17sec (2297 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 15 2018