Woodwork Project: Japanese Toolbox Style Box Build

[Music] in this project I'm going to make a storage box in the style of a traditional Japanese tool box in fact because I want to have their boxes in contrasting wood I'm gonna make two simultaneously I have to 1200 millimeter boards one in beach of one in sapele and they're both 19 mil thick I'm restoring them slightly off-center so that when I take the saw kerf into account which is about three mil I end up with for each piece of wood a board of 10 mil and another of around 6 mil so here that boards there's a beach ten mil as a belly 10 mil of each six mil Ana sapele six mil there are quite a few tool marks left over from the table saw when restoring a table saws not ideal for restoring wood but I didn't have a bandsaw available to me at the time I use a number five and a half Jack plane to get down to thickness and then a number for smoothing plane - to smooth the timber when I more or less there you say card scraper to remove any final tool marks and get the surface nice and smooth I'm just checking with a pair of winding sticks to make sure there's no twists in the board and then I use one of the winding sticks along the length of the board to check for any bows or high spots which I'll mark and then I can remove with the plane I'm spending a lot of time making sure I've got everything completely flat and then I want everything nice and smooth it's a lot of work to get everything flat and smooth but because I'm using two types of wood in each box I want to ensure that they're both of uniform thickness I could think of investing in a thickness planer but I like working with hand tools and besides I'd still have to remove the tool marks with hand tools anyway so that's my boards already and now marking up to cut the boards to length I'll need from each 10 mil board I'm going to need two side pieces of 300 mil two end pieces of 200 mil and then the final 200 mil I'll cut down for the wedges and fixings for the top I'm chiseling out against the knife wall here to give me a recess for crosscutting there's everything cut to length I have four 300 mil boards in the six mil stock and then in the ten mil stock I've got two 300 mil boards and three 200 mil boards I'll just do a rough assembly here to give you an idea of how each box goes together you see with a beach one we have beach bottoms sapele ends beach sides beach top and in sapele fixings there's a plane to make sure that the edges of the six mill boards are completely straight and flat as I'm going to be joining these together I joined the boards together to make the bottom and the lid and I'm just going to edge join these with glue there will be extra structure in the finished box which will help give strength through this joint I have to be careful when gluing these up that I don't introduce any kind of bowing while those are gluing up I can get on with the rest of the box now to follow the style I once have an overhang on the length of the box I'm just marking the width of the NP so I get the correct overhang and then I use the end piece again to mark the width I'm marking out now where the end pieces will run against the side pieces I'm using a knife to mark up for accuracy also I'm going to be chopping mortises here with the chisel and the knife marks help to get the edges of the mortise nice and crisp I'm going to transfer the marks from my first board onto the second rather than measuring independently that way I know that they will match having transferred the marks I now make the full knife marks using the square and I make sure that I always reference the same edge the size market it's on to the ends the thing I'm doing is marking a debt for the protrusion of the Tenon's as a marking gauge to do this to make sure they're uniform across both boards I then use the side board against that initial mark to mark out its thickness transfer this to a gage and Mark both boards I'm using a mortise gage now I set the two pens to be the width I want the tenon and the stock to be the width from the edge of the board I want the tenon to start I then transfer those marks to both sides of both boards this will make sure that the Tenon's when they protrude are nice and regular then using the square and knife I'm going to deepen all those markings so I can use these as a guide for the saw and same process now on the other end I use a pencil to mark down the cut just to help guide the sword by I I don't need a knife cut here because it doesn't help with the RIP cut on the saw next I make the rip cuts for the Tenon's using a dovetail saw I'm cutting on the outside of the knife line that way when I come to fit the mortise and Tenon's together they should be on the tight side and I can slim up the Tenon's with a chisel to help them fit I flip the board and do the other side with the rip cuts done I can now cut the shoulders I'm keeping these little off cuts as I'll use them later to create the features at the top of the box [Laughter] invariably my saw cuts aren't quite as straight as I would like so I put both boards together so that they uniform and just tidying them up with a chisel and now I have two end pieces that match pretty well next time markup for removing the material between the Tenon's I'm using the square here to carry on the square of the shoulders straight across that way when the joint butts together there won't be any gaps I put the mark on both sides as I'm going to work from both sides with the chisel I'm just making sure that the saw cut goes all the way down to that line I start chiseling away from the line because the bevel of the chisel will force a chisel backwards into the wood I now slice him with the chisel to remove some of the material with the material moved there's now a lot more room for the bevel and so I can start chiseling directly on the line without fear of it moving the chisel backwards I'll flip the board and come in from the other side again chiseling in front of the line until I remove some material and then moving the chisel back onto the line I repeat the process of chiseling down along the line and then removing material once you through I tidy up the face with a chisel I offer up the end piece to the sideboard I can now use the actual cut Tenon's to mark the position of the mortises again using a square and knife I'm going to mark out those mortises so I can get them nice and crisp I've also labeled up the corners so I don't get confused when fitting the box together it's about this time I realized that I didn't actually have a 10 mil chisel this would be a lot easier if I could have gone straight across but I'm not used to using a I think a 7 mil chisel here so I've gotta move side-to-side by the time I did the companion box I'd made sure I got a 10 mil chisel so I've got the mortises cut so I'm gonna try the Tenon's in for the first time I'm now going to repeat the process and mark up the mortises on the other side marking with the knife again and chopping out the mortises with a chisel the same way as when I was removing material from between the Tenon's I'll work from both sides of the board that way I can get a nice crisp cut on both sides rather than breaking through from one side and risking tearing out some of the fibers if everything is marked up correctly the the line should match face to face let's try those together good light tap with the hammer I don't want to force anything at this stage almost like it's a little bit tight so I don't want to force it and risk tearing out some fibers I should have got a little bit of bruising on the sides though which will show me where I need to make the mortises wider that looks like it's a nice tight fit now just rubbing off my pencil lines with all the mortises and Tenon's cuts on just doing a dry assembly to make sure everything fits nicely I can now make sure everything's seated nicely and square and if necessary make some small adjustments I would remove the clamps from the board's as they're all set up now and I'm going to need my clamps for the next bit so it's time to glue up the box my shoulders glue on all the mating surfaces and now I'll add some clamps I keep checking for square while I'm clamping up I can make the small adjustments left that you lean so right they should pull things pretty square final check for square before I leave it all to sit and dry I'm just using a card scraper on the wider boards now so this is the next day this is all glued up and there we go there's the initial box frame just do a little bit of sanding to remove any bits of glue that have come out whilst clamped up just a couple of passes with the plane just to make sure that all the sides and the ends are the same height and now I can glue on the bottom of the box you clamp everything together even though everything's pretty square I'll use quite a few clamps just to make sure it gets a good contact all the way around and that gets left to dry for another 24 hours or so the good thing about doing two of these projects simultaneously is that you can be working on the wood working for one box well the other one is gluing up scientists look like a box just use a plane to take the bottom down to the right width and make it flush with the sides of the box need to take extra care not to smack into the protruding Tenon's with the plane and take chunks out of them as they're going to be features of the box but if you use a card scraper to get some final smoothing so next I just want to mark up the center of the box so that when I come to fit the lid I can keep the seam down the center and I'll trim from both sides I'll mark up the overhang on that one side first and I'll cut it off on the table saw and now I'll mark up the overhang on the other side again I'll remove that excess on the table saw I don't have any footage of that I'm afraid so the lids nearly down to size now I've cut it slightly wide on purpose so that I can plane it to final size and get a nice smooth edge it's question of testing and then trimming a little bit off at a time until we get it to the right size there we go that just fits inside the the side with a bit of slop so that's about ideal now I want to cut the top caps on the box I'm just checking the width for the top caps there should be 30 mil a 10 mil overhang the 10 mil board and then 10 mil overhang into the box as well that way the mortises are bang in the middle of that top rail I've got those two width and now I'll glue them on I clamp them up and I'll leave these overnight now these top rails should be quite strong with just the glue but we're going to be reinforcing them later next I'm going to mark up the lid so I can cut it to length I'll do that by putting it all the way into the recess and then marking where the back rail is I've cut that off and you can see it's wide enough that it doesn't fall through it and bridge the gap across the rails I'm going to measure up and cut the cross pieces the cross piece for either side that will be connected to the lid as you can see I've made one of the cross pieces wider than the other is two point eight mill wider and that's to allow for the saw kerf on the table saw as I'm going to cut this piece down to form the wedge marking the position to fix the first cross piece this piece needs to be completely Square to the edge of the lid initially I'm gluing these cross pieces onto the top of the lid but as per the rails on the top of the box I'm going to be reinforcing them later just removing any squeeze out and again I left that to dry overnight so even with you to that one piece on you can see how the lid will start to fit I'm checking the position for the other rail there so I've marked up on that cross piece where I'm going to cut it to form the wedge and we'll cut it on the table saw and I'm gonna do this by creating a temporary crosscut sled I'm just gonna tape the piece to a piece of old MDF the line there is the line that the saw will travel down I align this line with the line I've drawn on the cross piece that's going to allow me to cut that at an angle I'm just adding some extra tape there to make it even more secure when I come to cut it I want the wedge to be angled in two directions so I'm going to tilt over the table saw I've set it at 25 degrees but that's arbitrary really I could have cut this wedge by hand in fact I did on my prototype I knew I could guarantee the accuracy of the angle in two directions using the table saw the reason the wedge is cut with an angle in two directions is to stop it falling out so the the secondary angle helps force it down towards the lid I'm going to use a piece of offcut sapele just as a guide whilst gluing up the cross piece I'll take this to the lid and then I've got something to line the cross piece up against I don't want to get too much glue involved here as I don't want it squeezing out and compromising the angle for the wedge and also I don't want to sticking to my guide piece without position I'll clamp it up and leave it for the night and here we go that all lines up and wedge works perfectly [Music] now the cross pieces on the lid overhang a little bit so I'm going to mark those up so that I can cut them off flush with the side of the box I'm not going to transfer the mark onto the wedge as I'll leave that overhanging the box for ease of operation I'm just chiseling into the knife mark to help guide the saw I'm just trimming up and evening the edges with the chisel and then some sandpaper now these exposed mortises on the side of the de box are a design feature so I'm going to shape them with a chisel I'm just giving the box a once-over with sandpaper after the initial assembly so the securing mechanism for the lid relies on the mechanics of the wedge forcing the lid against the cross rails now all these components are just glued at the moment and although this may be fine I think I field happier if there was something reinforcing the glue joint as it's gonna be under constant strain so I decide to reinforce this by screwing through into the crossmember from the underside of the lid I'm using a center punch to mark the position of the screws so everything's nice and neat although this is the underside of the lid it's still a piece that people will see I'll use my hand drill for this stage of the job just because I feel I've got a little bit more control and I can a bit more gentle and I'll use a countersink bit to make sure the screws fit snugly the screws I'm using here are four by 12 millimeters with the cross pieces secure to the lid it's time to do something about the end pieces and this is where I'm going to use those off cuts that I saved from earlier I'm going to replicate the look of the exposed Tenon's on the side and make some caps to hide some screws I'm using a junior hacksaw to cut these just because I was looking for something with a narrow curve marking up where the holes are going to go and matching them with the plugs this way I can fit each plug so we can have a nice tight fit marking the rough positions with a pencil and then I'll use a square a knife to mark out the actual holes I'm going to cut with the chisel once again this job would have been easier if I'd had a 10 mil chisel it seems of all the jobs I've normally done have been using my 12 mil or 8 mil so far at least I had recently sharpened all my chisel so that wasn't too worried with all the holes cut I'm now going to drill ready for the screws again I'm using the hand drill I think countersink those holes this means the screw won't get in the way while I'm trying to fit the plugs these screws are 4 mil again but this time they're 20 mil long with all the screws in place I can now glue in the plugs custom fitting each of the plugs being they all fit nice and tightly into the hole after the glue is all dried and the plugs are nice and secure I use a chisel to replicate the design of the exposed Tenon's on the side of the box and that's the build pretty much complete all remains now is to finish the box so I'm going to do this by starting with a covering of danish oil but the first layer i just wipe this on i put a generous amount on but i wipe off any excess so I don't get any drips this is one of my favorite stages of the build as the colors of the wood start coming through I leave the first layer to dry for a day or so and then sand it back this is with 30 40 grit sandpaper I only give it a light sanding there's just let it smooth once it's all sanded I'll go ahead and wipe on another coat after leaving it for another day or so I'll give it another light sanding this time with a thousand grit this last coat of Danish Oil apply with a very fine steel wool after a couple of days I'll give it a buffing with some beeswax and there we go to the finish box and here it is with its companion that I built at the same time so just to see the box in operation lid slice in pulls back and the wedge which is angled in two directions locks it in and the wedge stays in and likewise with the companion box with the wood in the opposite orientation I'm very pleased how these boxes turned out thanks for watching and if you enjoyed it please subscribe to the channel for more projects you

Channel: Adventures In T-Shirts Woodwork

Views: 112,900

Rating: 4.8811369 out of 5

Keywords: woodwork, box, japanese toolbox, demo, carpentry, wood work, hard wood, build, make, hand tools, adventures in t-shirts, how to, woodworking, woodworking projects

Id: W5f_OrN30-M

Length: 51min 46sec (3106 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2017