I made the utility boxes for storing the pegs and jokers games that I finished last week. They are made from 1/2" maple plywood and all six pieces were lock mitered together and then the top and bottom were cut apart on the band saw. I got to use Monique for laying out the curves. Aside from the hasps on the front , I also put a brass peg and bushing in the front of the box halves to align the top and bottom since it is so long. The handles are made from a sandwich of walnut and maple and have inserts in them so I could fasten them on with 1/4- 20 Machine screws.
Mounting the hasps gave me a problem as all six of the screws in the bottom halves of the hasps had the heads break off when I went to remove them after fitting the hardware. I was able to just clear the boxes standing on end in the mill. I took out all the broken screws with a 3/16" end mill and plugged and redrilled all the holes...and bought American made screws.
They are finished with satin poly and scuffed waxed to finish.
I have some shots of the designing of the handles and all the curves I tried to get the side curves just right. Cheers, Jim
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
Nicely done, Jim! I hate cheap screws, and have been buying mine from Fastenere.com lately. Happy with them so far, though their prices went up over the past couple years. Guess that’s the story everywhere, though.
Hi Dave, I was little shocked when all the heads came off. Thanks God for the milling machine. I had it cranked up to the top and could only let the end mill stick out about 3/8" to clear to box. He was looking out for me!!
Hi Tony, the boxes were so plain that I felt I had to dress them up with cool handles. I finished the handles and boxes separately so I could not glue the handles on, so I used a real strong attachment with the machine screws
Hi Alex. I cut my closed up glued boxes on the bandsaw all the time and they mate fairly well. I just try to do the same amount of sanding along the edges to get the saw marks out. These matched fair but I have done better with smaller boxes. One time I did that and the edge being cut on the band saw was a bit over 12" high. I had to remove the top guides to get it to go through the machine. I ran it through real slow with no top guides !!
Cheers, Jim
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
thanks Bruce, Eric, Scrappie, Moke, Ivan and Petey.
Hi Alex, you could cut the sides by themselves, but then you assembly would have to be perfect especially front to back or they would not mate. I think this method of cutting a whole box insures the accuracy.
Cheers, Jim
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
