The Music Box, continued-Hollowing out the Box

 Hi Everyone,

Well, the music box portion of the project is done. I drilled it out with some super large Forstner bits and got it deep enough and wide enough for the mechanism to sit inside. 

Here's today's photos:
I've been dreading hollowing out the music box. It's narrow and deep and I could see myself getting a catch and knocking it off the lathe and onto the floor and it's for that reason I decided to drill it out.
I've done this before and it can be a laborious process but with the new lathe, it took about 5 minutes and it was done without incident!

Here are two of the bits I used. The widest bit I used was 2 3/4" wide. I did it step by step and the turning was very easy:

Here's the set up-a chuck with the bit: 

Here is the box completely hollowed out:

I stopped at this point and measured the box carefully. I need a platform inside the box for the mechanism to sit on and I created one that you can see in the photo that turned out to be 10mm thick. I wanted to hollow out the box more but the walls were getting thin and I didn't want to break through so I stopped at this point.

Since the box is hollowed out and there is a platform and a ridge just inside the top of the box for the lid, I stopped, sanded everything and applied a coat of polyurethane to it. Here's the photos of that:

So the turning of the music box portion of the project is finished.

Next, time to make the lid:

Oh, and Happy Mother's Day tomorrow!!

See you all next week,
VW