Turned Jewelry box ( distraction from stripping lathe )

[micktoon]

 Hi all , well there does not seem to be that many wood related things so thought I would post what has stopped me stripping my Harrison L5 lathe for a few days. Its a Jewelry box of my own design..... well just thinking what had to fit in it more or less decided the design really and it had to have a lid to keep dust out too. The basic idea is: rings go on the pegs , earrings go on the shelf and necklaces and bracelets go in the lower part of the box.
   I made it for my Girlfriends daughters birthday so it had to be done NOW type job , so from metal & oil to wood & shavings it was  . The box and finial are ash and the lid and ring pegs are mahogany.





I have photos at various stages of the box and lid getting made, if there is any interest I will post them but its a bit late tonight.

Cheers Mick

[dsquire]

Mick

Go ahead, put them up when you get a chance. The way that you have designed it is great. I'm sure that she will like it.

cheers 

Don

[andyf]

Nice job, Mick. Hope you haven't made it too big, though. You don't want to leave room for much future bling in there; that might lead to a vacuum in your wallet 

Andy

[Brass_Machine]

Nicely done! More pictures are OK with me 

[micktoon]

 Just having a little chuckle here as there seems to be more interest in this box than my lathe getting rebuilt  Thanks for the positive comments and the birthday girl loved the box I am glad to say 

This is the way the box was made, it started with a blank of ash and a similar blank of mahogany for the lid , these get cut to rough shape on the bandsaw, like this photo , one of the off cuts will make the finial.



The blank is then held between centers and trued up, A dovetailed recess is cut into the tailstock side ( you will see it on following photos ) this enables the blank to be griped by the expanding jaws of the chuck as the project progresses.



Next the blank is mounted via this recess and the outside of the bowl/box turned and a similar recess put into what will be the base , this is so it can be re chucked to turn the inside. I am quite new to woodturning and was unsure of the shelf element of the turning, so a young more experienced friend 78 years young showed me how best to do this on his lathe , hence the lathe colour change. Thanks for the advice and help John  .



Once the outside shape and recess are done the blank is turned around and the inside turned , the bottom recess will hold the item for sanding and finishing both the outside and inside surfaces.




Back on my lathe the bowl/box part was sanded through the grit grades , 80,120,180,240,320,400,600 then sanding sealer ( fast drying thin varnish to seal the grain ) was applied then waxed and buffed.




Now the same process was done for the lid, first the blank trued and recess done. The bottom of the lid had to be turned first so the fit to the bowl could be tried for fit with the lid still on the chuck.



This is the underside of the lid with a groove where the top of the box locates and the recess that will remain under the lid to enable it to be re chucked so the top surface can be turned.



The under side of the lid was then finished the same as the box with sanding , sealer and wax.



The lid is then turned around and the top surface turned, unlike metal its all by eye and what looks right is right, it all happens a lot faster too I am glad to say !



The lid is turned to shape and a flat bottomed hole bored for the spigot that will be on the underside of the finial to locate. Its sanded and sealed.

I am posting this at this point as the photo bucket has stopped wotking and locked up , ......More to follow
  Thanks Mick.

[micktoon]

Photo bucket seems to be working again so here is the last photo I mentioned before there , the lid with hole for finial.



I forgot to take any photos of the finial getting made but its really just a bigger version of the little pegs for the rings in design and made the same way. The round knob on the finial was just done by eye and sanded to shape.
  I had a length of mahogany dowel so made the ring pegs from this to save time as I would have had to turn the square off cuts from the lid blank round to make them. The dowel is mounted into a small collet chuck and I managed to get two at a time from each bit, if it was sticking out any further it would have flexed too much.



This next shot shows the first of the two from this blank getting made , I had to make seven to get five that looked the same. Sorry for blurred photo.



After that it was just a case of marking out where the pegs go and carefully drilling blind holes on the dril press and a drop of glue on each peg, I ended up putting a screw up through the lid to fix the finial, rather than fixing with glue, this means it could be swapped for different style in the future. The recesses in the underside of the lid and the base means that in years to come if it starts to look a bit tatty its a simple job to remount with the recesses and re sand and finish.
  Just ask if you want to know more or if I have not explained anything in enough detail.
   Cheers Mick.

[Rob.Wilson]

Nice work Mick  i am impressed 


Rob

[micktoon]

  Cheers Rob, thanks for the compliments, I will be happy when I can get a metal project as good lol.  I hope you are managing to more done to the CNC motor brackets. Its my girlfriends birthday tomorrow so I have made another little box today to go with her gifts so not much done to the lathe , just scraped more flaking paint and crud from it.
 I will post some photos of the other box but its got too late tonight to attempt all the photo resizing stuff..........so watch this space.

 Cheers Mick.

[dsquire]

Mick

That is a super job that you have made on the jewellery bowl. Very nice presentation. Thanks for showing us.

Cheers 

Don

[Stilldrillin]

Mick.
That really is beautiful! 

Well done....... 

David D

[micktoon]

 Thanks Don and David , glad you liked it.
    I have made another smaller trinket type box out of Yew in the form of a mushroom for my girlfriends birthday, its ended a bit smaller than I intended but both bits of wood started off larger then various faults in the wood meant the size had to be a bit smaller than the planned size. It will still hold a few rings or whatever, as it was a gift I put a lottery ticket in it....... the draw is tonight so if the numbers come up, she might either...... leave me .......or I might be buying some new machines 

This is the finished box, its about three inches high and the lid about three inches diameter roughly. There is no dye or stain on it , the colours and patterns you see are in the wood.







A quick guide to how it was made, I did not take as many photos as got engrossed in making the box.

This is the blank the lid was made from, a nice looking bit of wood but allsorts of knots grain running different ways etc.



It was trued up between centres and a spigot put on one end so it could be firmly held in the chuck, then turned slowly to shape.





I just kept gently turning away until splits and loose bits were gone and I had the shape of the mushroom head. As you can see most of the wood is gone and now shavings on the floor.



The lid was sealed and waxed, the spigot that the chuck is holding it by will locate the lid to the box. This shot shows the first coat of wax so still a few lines where it is polished , these will be lightly cut back and a second light coat of wax applied.



The box blank is now trued up and a spigot turned so the chuck can grip it. Because the lid ended up smaller than I had wanted I now had to make the box to match the lid.



Once the box is roughly to size its turned around and held via the spigot then the main hole to make it a box is bored out with a saw tooth bit.



The hole is bored and the box turned thinner and the bottom and sides of the hole cleaned up with scrapers.



The box is then turned to shape, the lid is checked for fit and the box is altered until the lid fits correctly, the slim cut you can see near the chuck end is where the box will be parted off once its all sanded , sealed and waxed , once parted off the underside is sealed and waxed and thats it job done  ....... well apart from sweeping up lots of shavings. It turned out nice , pardon the pun 


 Cheers Mick.

[raynerd]

Mick, nice one on both the mushroom and the birthday box. I know jack about wood turning, I have a dumb question but I`m going to ask anyway. I understand the idea of the little recess so that the pieces can be flipped around and held again but how does the chuck hold on that recess? It just seems quite a shallow recess for the chuck to grip on so I`m curious to see how the lathe chuck works - i.e what the jaws look like, they look pretty funky just looking at the pictures of the bits that are showing!

Nice one Mick, that is something that I could do that my wife would actually appreciate!

[doubleboost]

Hi
Mick
Just read this post
I am well impressed 
John

[micktoon]

  Hi John and Chris , thanks for the nice comments . I have watched plenty of posts you have both done in the past and enjoyed plus learnt from  them  so nice to know that I am repaying the compliment 

 As you say Chris , you can make things that your wife will like quite quickly so earning 'time off' so you can get on with your own projects    ........ The landrover project should be earing you some good 'Brownie points' mind.......... well until you have to build another shed to keep it in that is 

   I have took a few photos of the chuck today, its basically a four jaw self centering scroll chuck similar to metal lathe one really , even the jaws are the same except they have removable jaw extensions that allen bolt to their top surface, these additions come in various sizes so you can hold different sized stock. The actual ends of the jaws have an internal and external dovetail so you can either expand the jaws out and hold into a hollowed out recess in the work or tighten the jaws inwards onto a spigot sticking out of the work. With it being wood there is a certain give so the jaws sort of bite into the wood and with sharp tools it only takes a small recess to grip the item strongly enough to turn it as the forces much be much less than metal turning. Because you are holding the tool and can feel through it , you sort of know if you are pushing your luck or if things are starting to come loose.

This is the general view of the jaws, you can see the outer rim has the internal and external dovetail profile. The counter bore you can see in the jaw extension is the one of the points that fix the add on section to the main jaw, the other one is inside the cone part so can not be seen in the shot.




This is another view of the dovetail profile.




This is a blank with the stick out spigot , its only say 3mm or 1/4 inch and holds fine.



Another thing that is used is a metal face plate ring as in this photo, it is screwed to the blank and has in internal dovetail so the chuck jaws expand into this is more secure but you have to be removing the area where the screws had been if you want to leave no holes. These are good for better grip if the initial blank is odd shaped and way out of balance to start with, the extra safe secure attachment can be used to get the work round and balanced before moving on to it being held by the jaws direct into the wood. Both the chucks and rings come in various sizes depending on what size things you want to make.



  The other thing I would say is there are many different types and styles of wood turning chucks , These 'engineering type' as the woodturners call them seem to be easy to use so are popular. Hope this has answered your questions Chris.

 Cheers Mick.

[Rob.Wilson]

Cracking wood turning Mick 

I hope you are managing to more done to the CNC motor brackets.

Motor mounts are coming along slowly    

I have a spare lathe chuck that i was planning to mod the jaws  into a wood chuck for my Myford wood lathe ,,, mmmmmmmm one day 


Rob