Tea box-part 1

Good Morning All,
I've begun working on shaping and hollowing out this first in a series of three tea boxes.  This box will be given to a wonderful friend who has been very kind to me and this is a way of saying thank you. And as she is very much addicted to chocolate, I suspect this box will never hold any tea but will become a chocolate stash in her office!

These first two photos show the box mounted on the lathe with some preliminary shaping in the second photo:

This second photo shows the foot of the box and I've cut it down substantially from it's original size. I  think it looks better and lowers the center of gravity of the box so it doesn't tip over.  I've also left a rough section that will become the rim of the bowl. I'm shortly going to put the top on the box and turn it together as a unit for a few minutes to true up both pieces and make the diameters match up.

Let's get the top on the lather and turn a tenon in the underside and flatten out the surface of the lid:

Here are the two parts jammed together on the lathe ready to be turned together as a single unit:

And here we are several minutes later:

I wanted to give the box kind of a pot-bellied shape and so I rounded off both pieces. The top still has a considerable amount of shaping left to do.

Truing up the bottom portion has also given me a sense of were the outside surface of the box will be and also that will allow me to establish the thickness of the wall and thus the inside diameter of the box;

And here we are about 30 minutes later:

The box portion has turned very well. The sides and bottom are a little less that 1/2' thick and this gives the box a heavy, substantial feel. It will also help to keep it from breaking should it ever be dropped.

Here is a photo of the side:

I've left a broad, flat bead on the side of the box. This provides a transition to the lid.

This portion of the box will be sanded completely and then taken off the lathe. The lid remains to be turned and since this is a very visible portion of the box, we'll take this slowly.

I'm going to stop for about and hour and come back to the shop later this morning. Stop by for more photos and explanation.

VW