Small Box B

   The second small box I made from pallet wood also turned out to have lovely grain. This time I pushed my luck a little too far and made the sides 1/8th inch thick.  That did not give enough contact surface to get a solid glue joint so I had add  bracing.

 

The sides are braced internally and taped 

while the gravity clamp does its job.

  When I do a project like this that relies on glue alone I always give the glue lots of time, usually over night to set. I used Gorilla Glue to hold this together.  Also I tapered the corner braces so there was a smooth flow from the top into the box.

  The box is finished with two coats of "3 Part Finish" * and one coat of wax.  The only small handicap 3 Part Finish has it is is slow to dry.  I find that it needs 24 hours to dry enough that a second coat can be applied. It takes a couple of days for the final coat of finish to really harden. In this case time was available so it is not a problem, old style finishes are not for last minute folks. Once dry I gave the box a quick coat of wax and now it looks great.  

  Start thinking about gift season, it isn't far away.

  

* 3 Part Finish - one part boiled linseed oil

                          -one part varnish

                         - one part mineral spirits or turpentine.

Two Small Boxes Finished

   These are two of the wee boxes wood burned and finished.  I think that I like hinged lid the best but I put more design into the inset lid box.

  For the maple leaf pattern I went to the yard and picked three different sized leaves and made templates from them.  I don't like leaf patterns that are artificially symmetric.  My taste in leaves will impact on the sales of the boxes I suspect. There certainly will be people that will not want real life leaf shapes.

24 x 12 x 12 inches

   While I am on the topic of boxes, this is one of my boxes with history and mileage.  I made this box to carry a specific object forth and back to the East Coast of Canada four summers ago.  I am not going to tell you what is in the box just yet.   Stay tuned for further announcements.

  A decent little sander for cheap. I have been using one since last spring, it is my 80 grit sander.  When I use this sander I connect it to my Fein vacuum cleaner and sand away that first rough layer of planer marks.