Weird Wooden Box

Textures is featuring "Steam Punk" arts and crafts this month.  I have to confess that the "Steam Punk" aesthetic escapes me but I like to try and support and participate in the featured windows as often as possible.  My understanding is "Steam Punk" is sort of Victorian English is style.  So I created the box you see above.  It is elm, (very English) and finished with an old style rubbed in oil finish, that took days to dry in the high humidity of this summer.

The nails and screws are visible, this is my effort to have the mechanical aspects of the project visible.  Complex visible works go with the steam engine theme. Unfortunately wood work doesn't have much in the way of complex machinery, so I made the handle(?) on the top very complex, or silly depending on your point of view.

As with all the things I build in my shop it was fun.  I have learned however that I don't like working with oil based stains very much anymore.  I am so used to the water based stains and dyes that the smell of the oil based products is a bit off putting.  It is tough though to argue with the really good deep brown colour that the Danish Oil produced. Isn't that the reality of living, compromise; good colour, bad smell.