Need advice on building jewelry box

[Brooklin]

I'm looking to build a jewelry box for my wife. It's going to be a fairly elaborate thing about 11 inches high with doors and drawers. I've seen similar things in the department stores, but I want to build it myself.

I'm thinking of making it out of 1/4 and 1/2" cherry (have to see if I can get it at the sawmill first) Is cherry easy to work with and priced reasonably or should I use another wood and stain it?

Not sure how I'm going to do the joinery. I've seen a couple books on building wooden boxes, but at the time I was looking for jewelry box plans and should have been checking out the joinery techniques.

Anybody built anything similar to this. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Richard Cline]

I have build a few jewelry boxes. The job is not much different than other woodwork. You probably need finer detail because you are working with smaller pieces. The 1/4" wood sounds better than thicker material. Do not mistake the small size in thinking that the job will be easy.

Cherry would not be my favorite worrk. Sometimes it does not stain uniformaly. As you will only be using a couple board feet of wood it would not be expensive to get one of the exotics.

Dick

[Dave Hinz]

Why would you use stain on cherry at all? If you don't want it to look like cherry, use some other wood. That's why different wood comes in different colors, so you don't have to stain it.

[dbird]

the only advise i can give is that we bought a jewelry box at a thrift store... it ahd two drawers on the front that you pull out and one door that came down and had some velvet inside to put rings into the slots... cost about $2.50. was gonna take it apart and finish the wood finish... turned it over and could hear someting inside it????? thought it was one of the draws sliding around... turned it upside down and then opened the pull down door and out fell an 18K gold metal mans right with a tigerstone in the front(looks like it cost about $150 or so.. i guess whoever had this box probably passed away and the family went through their things and then gave what they never wanted to the thrift store?? just telling you that if this jewelry box was made a little better the ring never would have fell into the empty cavity in the back of the pull down drawer and the family would have recovered the ring when they opened it up....

[TeamCasa]

I agree with Dick. Pick some very nice wood, I am working on a jewelry box now and have chosen some birds-eye maple and purpleheart with ebony accents. Total wood cost was less than $50.00 and I have some spare pieces.

Dave

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[BRuce]

[JMWEBER987]

If your looking for something different in a jewelry box take a look at this kick ass design at

down to bedroom then click on jewelry box. No connection to this site just a fan of this particular item Mike in Arkansas

[Grant P. Beagles]

I have a set of measured drawings (not plans) from the New Yankee Workshop for a jewelry box that is fairly good sized. It even has a hidden drawer. I haven't built it yet, but I have used other NYW drawings. I have had no problems with them.

I enjoy using cherry. The patina it develops as it ages is beautiful. Expose it to the sun and it darkens. Try to get the wood from the same log so the color is even. Sap wood will not darken much. It has the color of coffee with a lot of cream.

Good luck and enjoy!

Grant

Brookl> I'm looking to build a jewelry box for my wife. It's going to be a

[Bob Schmall]

Doug Stowe, a not-often-seen member of the wreck, has authored at least two books on box design, including a number of very nice jewelry boxes. You can find them at Amazon.com or off the rack at Woodlcraft or Rockler. You'll need to do some calculating on the dimensions, but I suspect that's what Doug had in mind, allowing the reader to customize their own. I'm in the middle of building one in curly maple, but it will be a month or so before I'll be able to comment on it.

Bob

[Ron]

I built one for my wife as a wedding present 4 years ago. It was cherry and I fell in love with the wood. It works well, but burns easy. I put a few coats of oil on it when I was done and 4 years later it looks great. It had a lid on top with a few ring bars. On the front there are 4 small drawers down each side and two doors in the middle that open up to 2 necklace carousels (spelling not even close on that). On the bottom of the front I put a wide drawer and included a music movement that player Fur Elise, which we had at our wedding. It's basically a small cabinet with a face frame. I made it from all rough stock and it took a few months of working after work, while she was in England for work and while plannign a wedding. I'd do a lot of things differently now (like not running the finished product through the jointer to even out the top of the box) but it was my first project, I learned a lot and it still looks great.

If you want to know more about what I did send me an e-mail and we can chat. I have lots of pictures and can scan some and send you a few.