105 – Oh For Keepsake!
Download HD .mp4
Download HD .wmv
Its that time of year again: HOLIDAY PROJECT TIME! So this year, I decided to make a few little keepsake boxes, thanks to some advice from The Great WOODini. I also took inspiration from a box Nicole keeps on her nightstand and developed a new design that is much more practical for the average woodworker to make. The boxes feature a secret locking pin. Once removed, the lid slides off on a sliding dovetail. And as always with these holiday gift projects, you can modify them by trying different sizes, shapes, and wood species to make your own one-of-a-kind box. And since they are so easy to make, its no problem batching out a bunch of them in a single weekend. If you decide to make some, please send me pics of your variations.
Topics Covered:
- Creating sliding dovetails
- Using a dowel-centering pin to locate holes
- Cutting a recess with a pattern bit
- Sanding end-grain
And here are a few pictures of the final boxes:
 |
Circle Templates – $32.99 This template set has been incredibly useful for numerous projects including these keepsake boxes and the Contemporary Clock Project from last year. |
 |
GRR-Ripper™ Adjustable Push Block – $59.99 The GRR-Ripper is the fancy push block you see me using in this video. Incredibly useful and gives you ultimate control of the workpiece! |
Cherry and Walnut Bed – Viewer Project
Nothing is more rewarding than building a project that would have cost thousands of dollars from a furniture store, but costs you only time and materials. Let’s check out this beautiful bed that Matt designed and built:
I have finally finished my bed project! Here’s the story. I designed this bed by jotting down some ideas and it evolved as I worked. It has taken me well longer than it should have, but it’s finally done. I used mostly cherry, some walnut for the beading, and cherry ply for the panels. Most woodworkers don’t seem to like seeing sapwood, but I actually got a compliment for “gum streak” on the footboard from a cousin that works for a cabinet company. There are a few plugs on the tops of the headboard and footboard that are cocobolo. I used oak for the rails and stained it antique cherry, because I just had some good oak the right length for the rails. I’m pretty excited and my son has been very patient. I think he’s pleased. Hopefully it’s strong enough to handle years of abuse as he and his brother get bigger.
Gerald’s Chest of Drawers and Doll Desk – Viewer Project
Filed under: Chest of Drawers, Childrens' Projects, Desks
This Viewer Project post is a two-fer. Gerald sent us pics of a beautiful chest of drawers as well as a doll desk for his daughter. Check it out:
The Chest of Drawers
My wife’s sister asked that I build her son a chest of drawers similar to one that she had seen in a furniture store near her house. It was a painted item of poor quality. This would be my first opportunity to design and create a piece from start to finish.
I started with the overall dimensions and began creating the shop drawings for the piece. I am a Professional Land Surveyor by trade so I was able to utilize Autocad for the drawings. I went through every piece in my home to get different ideas on how to design the case for the piece. The design I ended up using seems pretty simple once I broke it down into the components. The sides are a frame and panel between the two legs. The supports for the drawers are a simple frame design and really worked well. The top is an edge glued panel of the best stock I had on hand.
The drawers are constructed using a type of locking rabbet joint in front and dado in the rear. As can be seen on the photos I reinforced all interior corners with small mitered pieces just to add more strength to the joints. This piece is going to a small child and I wanted to be sure he could not pull the drawers apart. The drawer slides are full extension glides. A little unusual for a furniture piece but again I wanted to make sure that if he was to lean down on the drawers or to climb on them that they would support the load and not give way.
The drawer fronts for the top three drawers and the middle two were cut from one piece of stock to insure grain continuity across the piece. Really makes the piece stand out when completed. All joinery on this project are Domino’s from Festool. Thanks again to Dennis Kent of Woodcraft for suggesting this tool for my shop. It is an awesome tool that makes quick, strong and accurate joinery.
The finish was lots of fun to watch come together. The cherry really comes to life during the finishing process. I started by sealing the raw cherry with a wash coat of shellac to help control blotching. This was followed by two coats of Minwax “Cherrywood” gel stain. The gel stain was easy to work with and ended up being very transparent. It really allowed the grain to show through on the completed project. The second coat was when the character of the cherry began to show. The top coat is lacquer sprayed on with my Earlex HVLP system. Multiple coats were applied to allow wet sanding and hand polishing up to the desired sheen. I think the top came out nicely once the sanding and polishing were completed. Antique brass hardware completed the look and matched nicely with the cherry.
The Doll Desk
My daughter Sarah has several American Girl dolls and loves to play school with them. She asked daddy for a desk for “Julie” and I set out to see what I could come up with.
This project was built pretty much on the fly. Sarah had seen an old type desk at our church and wanted Julie’s to be like it. I decided that since I had some nice Red Oak left from from another project I would use it. The desk compartment is a simple box with a slant top that opens to storage below. A pencil groove was routed in the flat area near the top. Corners are simple rabbets and the bottom is tempered hard board floating in a groove milled into the sides.
The chair is sized to fit Julie and utilized some thin stock that was left over from another project where I had resawn some oak for another use. The sides utilize a half lap joint and are surprisingly strong. The seat and back stretchers are the thin resawn stack that I mentioned earlier. The chair support and desk support is again built from some scrap pieces I had around the shop from larger pieces. 
The original thought was to have the vertical support for the desk and chair be the only pieces under each. Once the pieces were assembled it became obvious that more support was needed laterally to prevent each from racking. I added the mitered braces to help with the flex of the thin stock. I finished the piece with two coats of satin polyurethane.
Now Sarah and Julie can play school in style!
Unique Coffee Table – Viewer Project
This Viewer Project comes from Frank. Its a very cool coffee table and was actually a group effort. Let’s hear his story:
I built this table with my friend Matt and my father-in-law George. We built it in George’s basement. He has all the tools, which was nice. We went over there every weekend for about two months to complete it. It is made from solid cherry and is held together with dowels. The finish is Danish oil and General Finishes Arm-R-Seal satin polyurethane. This was my first actual project so let me know what you think. Right now I am trying to start the tool collection so that I can start working on something else. I have plans on making a woodworking bench by hand as well as the cutting board from your videos. Thanks.
Check it Out!
Premium Membership
Keep Up With TWW!
Shop our Affiliates
Latest Video
Proud to be Sponsored By:
Support our Advertisers
