Mother's Day Wood Turning Marathon-Special box for Sarah

Hi Everyone,
Well the big day has arrived.

I've sharpened the tools:

And I've cleaned up the shop..well almost cleaned up the shop:

And this means it's time to go to work-let's go:

If you saw my last posting, you'll have seen the small blocks of wood that this project is comprised of. My aim today is to make a small round box that will fit in the hand. So I began the turn by turning a tenon on both the bottom of the box and the underside of the lid. This will let me attach the box to the lathe later on. 

This is a photo then of the box attached at the bottom to the lathe. It's ready to turn:

I'm going to round off the top of the box first and then hollow it out. Here is the beginning of this stage of the turn:

Here is a photograph several minutes later. I've rounded off the sides and created a small bead on the mouth of the box:

Here I've begun hollowing out the box. I just wanted to make it deep enough to hold earrings or other special stuff and not completely hollow it out:

This is the box several minutes later. You can see that the box is deeper and a little wide and the bead shows up prominently:

Here is the box after it's been sanded, both inside and out. Now it's time to turn the lid:

I turned a tenon on the top of the blank and attached it to the lathe:

And I've begun turning a tenon on the underside of the lid. This has to fit exactly into the box so it took about 20 minutes of turning between this photo and the next photo:

Great. This fits the box perfectly:

And here is a photo of the blank on the box. Time to shape the top:

 Since the top will be the first thing everyone sees it has to look great and emphasize the roundness of the box. There also is not going to be a finial on the top of the lid so it needs a a rim that can serve a a point for picking up the lid off the box.  Here I've begun undercutting the lid:

I wanted the underside of the rim to match the diameter of the opening of the box and they match:

Here is the lid back on the lathe. I'm about to begin rounding off the top of the lid. This part of the turn took about 45 minutes of careful cutting. This wood is soft and it tends to tear and so I had to take very tiny cuts to the surface as it spun. At one point it looked like a flying saucer and then it looked like a hat. But I finally got it to where it looked nice and emphasized the round shape of the box:

Here is the lid almost done. The top is a little too high so I turned it down more:

And now the lid is finished:

Now the last step of the turn-removing the tenon on the bottom of the box. This only took a few minutes of cutting and shaping:

And here is the bottom of the box. The turning it done:

Here is a photograph of the box:

Woo Hoo!

I took it inside and wiped off the dust and put a coat of linseed oil on the top and bottom. Here are the finish photographs:

And here is the lid. If you look closely you'll see a tiny hole at the edge of the lid at about 9 0'clock. That's a tiny worm hole that was present in the block of wood at the beginning. I kind of like having that little hole there:

And we're done. I am going to apply a coat or two more of oil to the box and the lid and then let it cure for a day or two. At weeks end I'll send off the box to Sarah.

Happy Mother's Day to you all.

If you're a Mom, I hope you have great kids and you get to see or hear from them today.

If you lost your mom this year or if she's ill, know that I'll keep a prayer for you.

___________

Our next project is to finish Holly's bowl and I'll get to that later this week.

Take care and have a wonderful day and thanks for dropping by the wood shop. As always it's a pleasure to have you here.

Best Always,
VW