My First Project: Jewellery Box - The Build

From the time I started planning my first project I had decided that I would write about it. Given the amount of time I had spent on the design I expected my build to be fairly smooth. I imagined my write up to be something like - Step 1: Did this... Step 2: Did that.... so on and done!

However, soon in to my build I realised that this is not a craft that will suffer a fool for too long. By day two of my build it had become clear to me that my write up would be more like - Lesson 1: Made this mistake, learnt this... Lesson 2: Made that mistake, learnt that.

So here's my jewellery box build. One lesson at a time.

Lesson 1: A sturdy work surface and effective job holding equipment are absolutely essential for working wood well.

Like every new hobbyist woodworker even I had only a makeshift workbench. It was an old, bare bones study table with a frail, box-section frame and a sagging particle board top. In terms of clamps I had bought four C-clamps - two 2" and two 6". This is the only kind that seemed to be available in the local market.

Unfortunately this set up did not take me too far. When I started trying to square up my pine plank with my No. 4 smoothing plane the table shook and shifted vigorously with every stroke. This made planing next to impossible. Also, the shoe of my plane kept catching the C-clamps that I had used to fix the plank to the table top. This was clearly not working.

I was badly missing a woodworking vice. After looking around in the market for a bit I was not too happy with the quality of the ones I found for the price I was being asked to pay. Moreover, even if I got one it would be of little use without a half decent workbench to mount it on.

What does a tinkerer do when faced with such a situation. Why, build one himself of course. So I put together a design of what I called the Poor Man's Woodworking Vice! (more on that in a separate post)

My Poor Man's Woodworking Vice

This worked great for holding the plank for planing the edges, but planing the faces was still a challenge as the plank was wider than the limit of my humble vice. I finally made do by awkwardly wedging the plank between two pieces of thin MDF that were fixed to the table top with C-clamps.

Needless to say this arrangement yielded a board that was far from perfect in terms of stock preparation.

Lesson 2: Getting a piece of wood four-square is harder than it seems.

I proceeded to laying out my cut list on the plank and cutting out my main 8 work pieces (4 for the lid and 4 for the box). This was the first time I used Paul Sellers knife-wall technique for making a cross-cut. Actually doing it myself after having watched videos of the master do it over and over again was great fun!

The rip cuts were not nearly as much fun however. Despite my best effort my saw tended to slant slightly away from the line on the underside of the board. This left me with edges that had a slight taper.

The pieces of the box and the lid cut roughly to size. Notice the taper on the edges, particularly visible on the thin lid pieces.

It was straight on to getting the individual pieces four-square using my No. 4 and some elbow grease. Now that I had my vice in place things were a bit better in terms of holding the work pieces. This was aided by the fact that the pieces were now ripped down to widths that were within the limit of my vice jaws.

What followed was a frantic couple of hours of going in to the vice, a few stokes with the plane, out again, checking for square, in to the vice again and repeat. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get all the faces and edges to be true and square. The wobbly table didn't help. Every time, there was at least a few places along the face or edge of the work piece where I could still see a tiny sliver of light shining between the wood surface and the edge of my square. I finally had to stop with the closest I could manage without planning down beyond my required dimensions. Much to my dissatisfaction.

Another challenge I ran in to was getting my box pieces down to the right thickness - from a little over 3/4" down to 1/2". I first tried to re-saw the pieces to thickness with my hand saw. But that proved to be too inaccurate. I had a hard time getting my saw to be in one straight plane. I then tried to use a chisel to remove material by splitting the long grain. But the length over which I had to work was too long and I just could not manage it without risking having the splits go across my marked dimensions. I finally resorted to planing it down to thickness. A lot of planing.

A note about planing pine with a plane that is cutting well - It is addictive! At least it was for me. It was a joy to see shaving after shaving whisk out of the mouth of my plane. Had I not been limited by the amount of wood I had, I am sure I would have planed through a few cubic feet of pine that day just for the feel of it... not to mention, with pine, the fragrance of it!

Lesson 3: Box joints were not meant to be cut by hand.

After the pieces were dimensioned it was on to joinery.

I laid out my box joints as per design. I cut the single, central finger on the two side pieces first. This was straightforward as I could do this just with a hand saw. For the back piece I had to remove material from the middle in order to be left with two fingers on either side. I did this by making two cuts down to required depth with my hand saw and then used a coping saw to cut off the part between the saw kerf left behind by the first two cuts.

I kept my cuts slightly shy of the lines. I then refined them down to the line with a chisel. But when I mated the two pieces together to form the joint they didn't fit well. I tried to refine the cuts further with a file but that turned out to be a bad idea. It resulted in a slight curvature on the surfaces of the fingers due to the natural hand filing action and also removed the crisp edges left by the saw cut. This further exposed the gaps in the joint.

My failed, hand-cut box joint.

It is not that apparent in the photo above, but my joint was loose as hell. So much so that when kept on the table like that, I could easily separate the side piece and pick it up without event moving the back piece!

I wanted to understand why it had been so difficult to cut a joint that seemed so simple on the face of it. Some reading on the internet revealed that box joints were made popular, if not introduced, along with the advent of machine woodworking. Apparently, with a table-saw and a simple jig one can cut perfect fitting box joints all day long.

The material also seemed to suggested that in the amount of effort and care needed to cut an accurate box joint by hand, one might as well cut a dovetail joint instead.

Hmm... now there was an idea!

Lesson 4: Doom comes upon those who try to cut dovetails on their first project.

I decided to try it out. I decided I would cut a single tail on the side piece, to fit between two pins cut on the back piece. I made a quick template for the tail using a piece of card paper. I laid out my lines and made the cut using the only hand saw I have - one that has just 7 teeth to the inch (yes, you're right - Ouch!). After the tail piece was cut I used it directly to lay out the pins on the back piece. These I then cut using the hand saw and coping saw. Refined the cuts with a chisel.

And then the moment of truth. I mated the two pieces... but it just wasn't meant to be. My coarse tooth saw had left behind too rough a kerf, that was also out of square, for the joint to have any chance of being good. Not to mention (ahem!) my lack of skill and experience.

Lesson learnt - there is a good reason why hand cut dovetail joints command the reputation they do.

After that disaster I made sure I proceeded in the right direction. i.e. when you fail on a difficult joint, you go on to trying an easier one... not one that's even more difficult. Duh!
 

Lesson 5: Three important rules of woodworking - Sharp tools, Sharp tools and Sharp tools!

I finally chose to go with a rabbet joint for the corners of the box. I decided I'd cut a 1/2" wide by 1/4" deep rabbet on the ends of the front and back pieces to receive the 1/2" thick side pieces. I marked them directly off the side pieces, then cross cut down to just shy of my 1/4" depth line and then used a chisel from the end-grain side to split and pare the rabbet to the final size. With my beginner's skill they did not quite turn out absolutely true and square, but they were good enough.

Next up were the 1/4" by 1/4" rabbets on the bottom edges of all four box pieces. These would form a continuous recess on the bottom of the box to receive the 1/4" thick bottom panel. One good side effect of the rabbets I cut for the corner joints was that now I only had to cut a through rabbet on all four box pieces, instead of stopped rabbets I would have had to cut on the front and back pieces as per the original plan.

Bottom rabbet on the front and back piece. Original plan vs. new plan.

These rabbets were slightly different to the ones I cut for the corner joints because both the cuts on these ones were along the long-grain. Neither could I make a cross cut using a knife wall on one side, nor could I come splitting and paring from the end grain side. I was not too sure how to proceed. I tried to use the chisel on the first one.

Working with the front piece, I laid it flat so that the inside face was now facing upwards. I placed my chisel vertically on the line and started with a small vertical chop. Then I tried to pare from the other side down to the depth of my chop. I repeated this to progressively go down to my required depth, and then proceeded likewise along the entire length of the rabbet.

Now, I had only sharpened my chisel once at the start of the project. So by now it was relatively dull. But I continued with it in my laziness, all the way along the length of the rabbet. I could feel the going getting tougher with every inch that I proceeded. I tried to compensate for the dull chisel by applying more force on my chops and pares. This made me loose control on several occasions, causing ugly blow outs.

Rabbet cut using a chisel. Notice the several blow outs on both edges of the rabbet.

So for the back piece I decided to use the saw. The idea was to make a rip cut from both sides converging at the corner of the rabbet. This proved to be quicker and easier, although once again my dull saw let me down and the result was still a rather ugly looking rabbet.

Rabbet cut using a saw. The cuts are not clean due to the saw not being sharp.

I finally realised it was time to sharpen up. I sharpened my saw and repeated the above technique on the two side pieces and got substantially better results.

A much cleaner cut with the sharp saw.

To finish off the box pieces I just had to cut a dado each on the front, back and the left-side pieces to receive the internal partitions. Having learnt my lesson, this time I sharpened my chisel before I started working on them. Things went much smoother thereafter.

With the box pieces finally done, it was time to glue them up. I used my shop made corner clamps to hold the corner rabbet joints in place.

The box glued up using my home made corner clamps. One of the internal partition piece also in place in its dados to help align the box during glue up.

Lesson 6: There is a right joint for every occasion. For everything else there is heartache.

With the box done, it was time to work on the lid. I had planned to join them using mortice and tenon joints, just so that I could try my hands at cutting one. My lid pieces were 3/4" thick so I laid out 1/4" thick mortices and tenons.

The mortices and tenons laid out using my home made marking gauge - another brilliant idea by Paul Sellers.

I used my drill machine to remove bulk of the material to form the mortice hole. I then proceeded to using a chisel to square up the corners of the cavity. And before I knew it, another disaster.

Trying to cut a 1/4" mortice surrounded by just 1/4" material with a 1/4" chisel was a bad idea.

There was very little material around the mortice I was trying to cut. It just couldn't withstand the hammer blows I was striking on the chisel. I guess every joint has a right time and place. This wasn't one for a mortice and tenon.

I had to think of something quickly to salvage the situation. I already had holes drilled for all the four planned mortices. Luckily I had not touched the tenon pieces yet, so they were intact. I remembered reading about the loose tenon/floating tenon joint. One where we essentially cut a mortice on both the pieces to be joined, and separately cut an independent tenon piece which is then inserted halfway in to both the mortices, thus joining them. I already had holes drilled in one side of the joint. I drilled similar holes in the other pieces as well. I then needed to fashion a loose tenon with a round profile (A loose tenon with a round profile!?... it's called a dowel you fool!)

Dowel stock made out of a long 1/4" x 1/4" scrap piece using drill machine and sandpaper. Note: Make sure to hold the sand paper with some padding in your hand, it gets really hot when the wood spins at a high speed while rubbing against the sand paper.

So I used a 1/4" by 1/4" scrap piece that had come out of the rabbet I cut on one of the box pieces, chucked it in to my drill machine and clasped a piece of 80 grit sandpaper around it as the stick spun around. I sanded it down to the same diameter as the shank of the drill bit I had used to drill the mortice holes.

My loose-tenon/dowel joint components ready for action.

It was a little tricky to align the two mortice holes perfectly with the dowel inserted such that all the edges and faces of the work pieces being joined were flush with each other, but overall this worked out great. Nothing that a little sanding afterwards couldn't fix. I soon had the lid glued up and in my corner clamp.

Next I needed some sort of a lip all around the inside edge of the lid frame to hold the glass. Originally I had planned to cut a rabbet in the lid pieces, much like the ones I cut on the box for the bottom panel. But since the lid pieces were rather small and I was not exactly sure how to cut stopped rabbets by hand, I decided that rabbets were not the way to go.

Finally I cut out 1/4" by 1/4" strips from a scrap piece of wood I had lying around, cut them to length, hand mitred the ends with a hack saw and knife, and simply glues them on the inside edges of the lid frame. This formed a nice 1/4" lip for the glass to rest on.

Had to resort to some creative clamping - few pieces of jute twine and an additional thin stick (not seen in the photo above) wedged between the two pieces did the trick. I repeated the same steps for the two short pieces once the glue dried on the first pair.

Lesson 7: The joy of one small success will erase the frustration of many a failure. Persevere!

With the basic box and lid construction done, the next task was to attach them with hinges. I got 1/2" by 1/2" by 2" brass butt hinges with matching brass screws. To set the hinges I had to cut out hinge mortices on both the lid and the box.

Starting with the lid, I laid the mortice out using the hinge itself. I then knife walled the cross-grain cuts on the ends of the mortice. I also made a knife cut along the side of the mortice that was along the long grain, very carefully trying to control my knife so as not to be (miss)guided by the wood fibres, instead to stay along my intended cut line. I used the marking gauge to mark the depth. And then went in with my chisel to begin to very carefully pare out the waste wood. I tried to be extra patient and resisted any temptations to bulldoze my way at any point. And it paid off!

My cleanly cut hinge mortices. The hinge held in place by itself, a sign of an accurately sized mortice. As an aside, I had to cut my screws down in length to make sure they were right for the thickness of my lid.

I was utterly delighted with the outcome. The edges were straight and square, the corners crisp and the hinges fit snugly in their mortices. This was highly encouraging and I couldn't wait to go on to the mortices on the box.

Deciding on the depth of the hinge mortices on the box was a bit tricky. I had to do several test fits before I got the right depth so that, when closed, the lid sat flat on the the box along all four sides. I in fact ended up cutting the hinge mortices on the box a little too deep and had to compensate by inserting little pieces of card paper packing between the mortice and the hinge.

Card paper packing to adjust the depth of the hinge in its mortice. Shh! Come on, no one is ever gong to see them in the finished piece.

Marked and drilled the holes for the latch on the front of the box, and I was ready for the finish!

Conclusion

Finishing the construction of my very first project was highly rewarding. After spending months watching and reading on the internet I had finally built something with my own hands. It was an overwhelming feeling.

Through the many mistakes I made along the way I learnt valuable lessons that will help me to hopefully do a better job on my future projects.

Onwards to applying the finish!