A while back, I bought a sander designed to square pen blanks from Penn State Industries. It’s a nice little unit, but there are small pieces included and it’s not a nice shape to store, so I built a box to hold it.
Construction is pretty simple, but I tried a few things to practice them. The sides and ends of the box are angled in at a 7.5°︎ angle. The dovetails were otherwise cut as normal, which worked fine, though I appreciated having made the sides from pine when it came time to fit things together, as pine will compress a little which makes inaccuracies less of a pain.
The bottom of the box is some poplar I had on hand. Had to glue up some boards to get the right shape, and then I added cleats to hold the sander in place.
The top of the box sits over the base and the sander, and I will be attaching the sander to the base once I’m certain that’ll work. I’ll also be building storage pockets into the cover of the box to hold things like spare sanding discs and the adapter so I can connect the sander to the dust collector.
Finally, I did some practice carving on the sides of the box. Nothing super-fancy, but it felt like I needed some practice, and I know I found a half-dozen gouges that needed sharpening along the way, so it was a good time to do some carving.
That’s it.
Of course, that isn’t it. A friend on mastodon asked about the style of the carving. I replied:
I learned mostly from Ron Aylor, who was heavily inspired by Peter Follansbee, so yes, at a remove. I bought Ron’s Categories of 17th-Century Mannerist Carving years ago, and mostly refer to that, but I also have been reading through Mary May’s Carving the Acanthus Leaf and some of the details are things from her book.
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I’ve started carving an acanthus leaf on the other side of the box. Photos are above, and there are more words on my personal blog.
Thanks! It’s a little fancy compared to some of my other boxes, but throw a coat of dust on it, and it’ll look right at home in the shop. Plus I got to tune up some skills on it.
Cool! I'm trying to clear space to make some wood containers for my portable power tools; my buffet is in the way. I like the carvings. Maybe I'll follow that lead.
When my sweetie tells me that I’m building more things for the shop than for her, I tell her that the shop stuff is (almost all) practice for things I’m working on for her. Has the benefit of being the truth, too!
As for the carvings on the sides, neighbors who’ve been to my shop and seen the file till have commented that I have fancier shop furniture than they do home furniture. I just smile and say, “yep.” But given how much time I spend there, and how much better I’ve gotten at some skills by practicing on shop furniture, I think my plan is working.
Dave, this project is impressive. I like the sloped sides with the dovetails, but especially like the carving, really nice. I've tried carving but my results were not very good. Luckily, like most times I try something new, I practice on cutoffs. Great work Dave.
Tom, the sloped sides were the primary thing I wanted to learn with this box, so thanks! As for the carving, I added a note after a friend on mastodon asked about it:
I learned mostly from Ron Aylor, who was heavily inspired by Peter Follansbee, so yes, it’s the style of Peter Follansbee, but at a remove. I bought Ron’s Categories of 17th-Century Mannerist Carving years ago, and mostly refer to that, but I also have been reading through Mary May’s Carving the Acanthus Leaf and some of the details are things from her book.
If you have questions about getting started carving, either of those books has enough to get you started. Or feel free to ask me. I don’t mind sharing what I’ve learned, but I’m also still learning.
YRTi, I’m interested to see what you come up with! Don’t be afraid to try stuff. If you carve the boards before building them into something, you can always put a failed carving on the inside of whatever you’re building to hide it. ;-)
Why not make a fancy storage box? As others said, the sloped sides immediately stand out as does the carving. For a practice box it looks pretty darn nice.
