Brazilian cherry keepsake box continued-turning the lid

Hi Everyone,

Well, last week's spring thaw was rather short lived-we got a mix of snow and ice this morning and it feels colder than the 40 degree reading on my thermometer at the moment. But a lot of the snow has melted and we can actually see grass. There may be hope after all:

Burrr. Time to get back to work.

Turning the Lid

Last week after my last blog posting I took the bottom of the box down stairs and I deepened by about 1 1/4". It really needed that and so with that part of the turn completed, it's time to begin the lid. Here is a photo of the box and the turning blank for the lid:

I mounted it on the chuck and the first thing I did was to true up the face:

Next I marked off the underside of the lid. By removing the wood between the lines in the photograph, I'll be able to cut out the tenon which will fit inside the box and hold the lid in place:

This has to fit snugly in the box and so I generally turn this part of a lid very slowly and mm by mm. Here is a photo of the side of the blank at present:

Lastly I sanded the underside of the lid and turned a small decorative design into the underside. This portion of the lid is now complete and the total time for this was about 15 minutes:

Next I flipped the blank over and placed it between centers again to begin shaping the outside of the lid. This will help to hold it securely in place while I remove a lot of wood:

Here you can see it beginning to take shape:

My original intent was to create a Raffan-style box. Raffan boxes are named after Richard Raffen, the well known Australian wood turner who popularized this design. The tops are generally rounded over with a cone-shaped finial and the boxes are cone shaped as well, with the bottom being narrower than the top. In this photograph you can see the finial beginning to take shape:

Now I was going to turn a bead on the bottom edge of the lid but I don't think I'm going to have enough wood to do that with so I'll have to skip the bead and simply round off the bottom:

 Nope, no bead on this one:

And so I turned off the bead. Here is the lid. It really needs to be flattened and rounded off more so I put it back on the lathe and proceeded to do just that:

Here is the lid after several minutes of turning. I added a base to the finial to avoid turning a long finial which I don't think would have looked very good:

And here it is after flattening the top. I could make the finial smaller but I think the box is large enough that the larger combined finial-base structure looks fine:

I also turned a small depression into the top of the finial and added a small cone inside. This replicated the cone shape of the finial and is a nice design element:

And here it is at present. I'm satisfied with the over all shape and design and so this part of the turn is completed. Next I'll be taking it back down to the wood shop for a thorough sanding and then I'll think about the finish.

Stay tuned,
VW

New Project-Small Keepsake box out of Brazilian Cherry-discussion and plans

Hi Everyone,

Well, it's gotten cold and grey here today and when the weather does that, the best thing I can do is go down to the wood shop and make something and here is the story behind this:

I have a friend who has been ill with a respiratory illness and she's had several bad days as of late so to raise her spirits a bit, I'm making her a small keep sake box out of Brazilian cherry aka jatoba wood.

Brazilian cherry is a very hard, dense, reddish brown wood. It comes from Central and South America and I've seen it most often as flooring here in the US. It's one of my favorite turning woods and it holds fine detail very well. If you're a wood turning, Brazilian cherry is a wood you should try.

Plans

I have a 3"x3"x 12" turning block of Brazilian cherry and I'm going to cut it in half and make a small, Raffen-type box out of it, named after Australian wood turner Richard Raffan. I'll probably use a spray lacquer for the finish.

Here's today's photos:

This is the turning block. This is heavy wood and you can see how the ends have been waxed to prevent premature drying:

Here it is cut in half and mounted between centers on the lathe:

Turning it down to a cylinder took about 15 minutes. I used a wide roughing gouge and then I smoothed the surface with the skew that I used yesterday. I have also divided the block into the box and lid portions and turned a tenon on each end so I can hold it on the lathe with the Nova chuck:

And I sawed the block in half:

I'm going to turn the bottom portion of the box and here it is mounted on the chuck. I'm going to narrow the bottom and I'm also going to turn a bead along the bottom edge of the box. In this photo I've roughed out the design and left enough wood for the bead:

 In this photograph I've the block out of the chuck and mounted between centers. I've also narrowed the bottom of the box and cut out the bead. The wood on the right side of the bead is waste wood and will be removed at the very end of the turn:

I've remounted the block in the wood chuck and I'm going to drill out the center and begin hollowing it out:

And here is a preliminary photo showing the hollowing out. I'm doing this the same way I hollowed out the music box and since the wood is hard, I'm cutting slowly with a very sharp tool:

More hollowing:

And this is the finished bottom portion of the box. Since this wood is so hard, it finished beautifully with a minimal amount of sanding needed:

Here is a photo of the interior:

The box is about 1 1/4" deep at present and I may deepen it a little bit more tomorrow. As it's getting colder, I've decided to stop and come in.

Tomorrow I'll probably deepen it and then turn the lid of the box.

See you tomorrow,
VW

Music box continued: hollowing out the bottom of the box

Hi Everyone,

Well, the weather here continues to improve so many apologies to Mother Nature for not believing it would ever warm up again.

I went down to the wood shop and continued working on the music box. If you recall I had hollowed out the top of the box to a depth of about 1 1/2" and now I'm going to hollow out the bottom of the box with the goal of creating a shelf inside of the box that the music box mechanism to sit on. The shelf will have to be thin enough for the key to protrude for winding but strong enough to enable me to screw the mechanism in place.

Here's today's photos:

So, I went down to the shop and reverse mounted the music box on the lathe and I also set up the tailstock for drilling into the bottom of the box. I like to do that whenever I'm hollowing out something. It helps to establish depth and it also makes hollowing easier to do:

I know, you're wondering why this makes hollowing easier to do-if you look closely you'll see that I'm beveling the edge of the drilled hole. Cutting at an angle helps to keep the box correctly centered on the lathe, the fibers don't tear so much, and it's just easier to cut the end grain in this manner:

In this photo you can see how the underside has enlarged:

Here is the box. I've hollowed it out to a depth of about 1 1/2". I'm going to sand the inside and the bottom of the box next:

And here is the box at present. I've rounded the edges on the bottom so my cousin or her husband don't scrap their hands when they go to wind up the music mechanism.

According to my precise calculations, the resulting shelf inside the box is about 1" in thickness at present so I'm going to stop and wait for the mechanism to arrive before proceeding with the hollowing:

And so here are a couple of photos of the box. You can see it next to a grapefruit in the next photo for size comparison:

While I'm waiting for the music box mechanism to play, I'm going to turn a small keepsake box for a friend who has been very ill recently with asthma and I'll tell you the story behind that tomorrow.

See you Friday.
VW

Music Box, continued: the finial turn and lid completion

Hi Everyone,

Well, today I made the finial and finished the box lid. Here are today's photos:

The Finial

Finials are a common thing to see on turned boxes. In addition to acting like a knob to open a box with, they add considerable visual interest to a turned piece. Finials are usually black in color were traditionally made from ebony or blackwood and given the density of those two woods, it's possible to create finials from them that contain extraordinary levels of details. Some finials are really spectacular and I think the music box would benefit from a finial being added to the top.

I've made finials from all sorts of different colors of wood and today I'm going to use Brazilian Cherry for this finial. Given the color of the music box wood, I think the red color of Brazilian cherry will contrast nicely.

Ok, here we go:

This is a photograph of the skew chisel I got. I'm going to use this to shape the turning blank and to cut out the finial with. I love this tool-it's a work of art:

This is the turning blank. It's a 4" long piece of 1"x1" Brazilian cherry left over from a previous project. I've mounted it between centers and I'm using a short 6" tool rest:

 I used the the skew to turn the blank into a cylinder. It took about 30 seconds to do that:

To begin, I narrowed the left hand end of the blank some. This will let me mount it on the Nova chuck:

And here it is ready to go. I'll do the rest of the turn with the blank inserted into the chuck:

Starting from left to right: I've taken the bedan tool and cut the stem of the finial and then I've marked out two small flanges and the top of the finial. It will be a simple oval shape:

 I put down the camera and roughly shaped the flanges and the top. It's still attached between centers on the lathe and will be until almost all of the sanding and turning is complete:

After several more minutes of turning the waste wood on the top of the finial is ready to be removed:

And I placed it back on the lathe and turned off the waste wood:

This is the completed finial and the lid next to one another for comparison. I think the finial is the right size for the lid:

I put the lid back on the lathe and sanded finely and I drilled a hole for the finial stem with a 3/8" forstner bit:

And viola! The finial fits perfectly!

Here is what the whole thing looks like at present:

This completes the lid.

Tomorrow I'll begin hollowing out the bottom of the box.

See you then,
VW