Sharpening Hones Box

As part of the ongoing battle against entropy in my shop, I built a small box to hold my coarse and fine sharpening hones, and my sharp skate, though I have the older model with wheels, which is perfect for me, since I prefer the side-sharpening method with most blades. The friable homes are my go-to sharpening system, as I don’t need to fuss with water or oil, and can just sharpen whatever’s dull quickly and get back to work.

The box is simple dovetailed pine, with a scrap plywood bottom and a nice piece of quarter-sawn sycamore, resawed down to ¼ inch thick as the lid. I chamfered the edges of the box at a 30 degree angle to give it a little different look, cut out a curved shape to give it some feet, and used the table saw to cut dados ⅜ inch deep (i.e. halfway through the board) on the inside and out in order to make a lid that would piston fit. The top and bottom float in ¼ inch deep dados on the inside of the box.

Once it was all together, I gave the pine a few coats of Real Milk Paint Terra Cotta and then hit everything with a coat of tung oil. On the inside of the box, I glued a couple thin pieces of poplar to hold the stones securely in place so they wouldn’t slide front to back as I’m sharpening. I’ll contact-cement some non-skid to the box feet if it slides around on the bench, but I suspect I won’t need to do that.

Next time I feel the need for a quick project, I’ll probably make a similar box for my set of 3 Japanese water stones, but I’m thinking that will have an epoxy finish inside so I can use it as a pond for the stones, too.