Six boxes in all, my first completed projects of 2025, started back in early January
To simplify things, I ditched the dovetail corners (big time saver!) and instead went with lock-miter corners. A real pleasure to cut and glue up!
Specifics: 10-1/4”L x 4-1/4”W x 4” H
Maple interior, finish is Osmo Polix
Sides were cut in a grain matching order. this is the Tamarisk. Has a nice red color. The top/bottom (right) from a different board are kinda meh.
Top/bottom are free floating for wood movement.
I like this technique. The interlocking tenons keep it in place but seamlessly allow it to do its own thing without exposing any gaps.The expansion/contraction clearance is set for the sides, the ends are cut flush.
This means of course that the entire box had to be glued in a single step.
Interior liner is maple. Learned from the first run that the fit needs to be loose or it takes a lot of shaping/sanding to get a fit that allows the lid to easily come off.
3/16” thick, dado’d with a pair of stacked dado set chippers.
Lids have laser etched areas filled with resin/mica. With the red fill on the walnut, (color is “flag red”), I wanted to be sure it showed. I mixed up a bit more concentrated ratio and it didn’t let me down. It glows as much as it looks in the walnut box photo toward the end.
Boxes tops are cut free on the table saw and finish applied Feet are fumed oak, profiled ends with silicone footsies.
Walnut:
Apricot:
Cherry:
Tamarisk (Salt Cedar):
Jatoba (some good curl on the lid that moves with the light):
I've made maybe 4 or five things with that same tree. Usually I'll just pour clear resin in the trunk and branches and let the burned laser etched area give the black. This time I used some black mica. The tree is about 3-3/4" tall and that's about as small as I can go and still have a good "wall" between the leaves and branches so the two colors don't mix.
All these were etched with tape over the wood so when I poured the resin, it wouldn't get into the surrounding wood grain. LBD showed his test with some clear grain filler used as a mask instead of tape and I'll test that out for next time.
BB, neat thing about the lid tenoning is it only takes one blade setup (1/8" from the fence and 3/16" depth) to cut the top/bottom and groove the sides. Then raise the blade to about 1/2" to get the depth on the top/bottom.
Another great looking project Bruce. I just started using resin yesterday and I haven't checked today to see if it worked out. I might have some questions if mine didn't work. I now you've mentioned it before, but I forgot the blue tape before lasering. 🙄
