A tale of two screw-ups

Recently I finished working on 3 similar jewelry boxes. It's a design I have done before with a dovetailed box in the middle suspended between two vertical natural edge slabs. Rails across the top and bottom of the box are pocket-screwed into the slabs, and the pocket holes covered with some decorative pieces. The box houses a number of drawers, which may also have some natural edged drawer fronts, so the drawers are odd heights. The drawer slides are dadoed into the sides of the box, only glued at the front to allow for expansion / contraction.

After completing all of them, with the caps glued over the pocket holes and finishing complete it was with much chagrin that I noticed that the orientation arrow inside the box which ought to be pointing up was in fact pointing down. Oh well, flip it over, right? Except the slabs on this one were quite nice at the 'top' ends and not very nice at all at the 'bottom', with one of them tapering significantly so that the back rail was only partially flush to it.

However, on only this one out of the three the drawers were symmetrical. So theoretically I could put the drawers in with it upside-down. But there was no way that the slides were going to line up like that. But what is the harm in trying, right?

They fit almost perfectly.

All I had to do was lower two of them on one side by 1/32" or so. And I was able to just barely fit my LV miniature shoulder plane in between the slides. So it took all of 2 minutes to fix what would have been the biggest mistake I've made all year.

If you are anything like me, at this point you would now be wondering when the other shoe was going to drop, because that just doesn't happen without something else happening to make up for it. And I didn't have to wait long.

The next thing to do was to drill the holes in one of the other ones for the knobs. Take a drawer out, mark the center, drill the hole, put it back. That's a pretty simple task, eh? One that would really cause a problem if you screwed it up, eh? Yeah. On the 4th one I went from marking at whatever dimension minus an 1/8th to plus an

1/8th.

So I got to sand all those drawer fronts down, make wooden pulls and glue them on, and refinish them. And all is right with the universe again.

Anyway, here are the three of them:

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that mini shoulder plane has caused me more pain, it's so darn small I keep smacking my hand into stuff, so it's about time its size came in handy. Still I wish they made one just like it the same width but double the rest. I have the bigger rabbet plane but this one is much easier to adjust.

Reply to
Kevin
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"Kevin" wrote

I don't wish to alarm you but somebody sold you some wood that still had bark on it. And there appears to be some kind of rot or insect infestation in the middle of two of the boxes. Just though you should know.

Reply to
Lee Michaels

Beautiful!

Reply to
Dick Snyder

Beautifully done Kevin!

Reply to
Nova

I was hoping no one would catch on to that. I ran out of good wood and had to raid the burn pile ;)

But seriously, I think the walnut on the front of one of them was from a section most people would have cut out and tossed in the burn pile, perhaps with a bit of regret. Big ol' knot and a punky spot surrounded by nice figure. On a different day I might not stop to save it myself.

-Kevin

Reply to
Kevin

Congrats on the restraint and end product, Kevin. Well done.

-- "Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the latent spark. If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?" --John Adams

Reply to
Larry Jaques

It has always been exciting for me to see 'rough-and-tumble' elegance. Very hard to categorize (probably impossible anyway) it is an form of art that I have seen and heard in many disciplines. Stevie Ray Vaughn is, in terms of technical ability, as rough and crude as it gets. But he creates warmth with spikes and barbs. A true artist. Early Picasso... same deal. In a documentary I saw once, he took a simple brush with black ink and slobbered some shapes and before my very eyes, they became alive.

Your stuff talks to me that way. Beautiful, just absolutely gorgeous..... This stuff should be in a gallery somewhere.. like 5th Ave NYC

Refined like a Keith Moon drum solo.

Reply to
Robatoy

Aww shucks... I was just going for fairly simple to make but with enough wow factor to get a decent margin, but I will settle for art.

Hey can I quote you on that for the website? :)

Now you have me wondering what would have happened if Keith Moon had gotten into shop class instead of music. Blow up tree with dynamite, start putting it back together until it looks like a table?

-Kevin

Reply to
Kevin

Reply to
tiredofspam

Reply to
tiredofspam

As a struggling beginner I love the creative work you have done on these boxes, but you need some scale in the pictures like a Dvd or ruler, or something. Very clean pictures too. I struggle just to make a set of bookcases.

Reply to
Scott

Scraping is the way to take on grain that does not want to plane.

Reply to
Ecnerwal

Scraping lowers the chatoyance a bit. I am looking for this to really pop, I want the best use of this wood. It looks so amazing even with the scar of the pith.

BTW did you ever notice the most beatiful pieces of wood are all technically or near defects.

Burls, Birds Eye Maple Quilted stock...

etc...

Reply to
tiredofspam

Drum sander, then random orbit sander. Never went near the planer with that stuff.

-Kevin

Reply to
Kevin

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