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I have to admit, since I finished with the actual woodworking part of my wife’s box, and presented it to her, I’ve barely thought about it. But the box isn’t finished yet (literally), so I’d better press on to the end.

So here’s my question for you: how would you finish the box? I was considering a simple 1:1:1 blend of boiled linseed oil, varnish and mineral spirits, as recommended by Marc Spagnuolo in one of his podcasts. That’s the finish I used on my Good Friday Cross, although I don’t know if I did it right. I rubbed it on with a soft cloth, 3 coats I think, lightly sanded in between. I think I read somewhere that you only need to sand prior to the last coat. Is that a good way to apply it?

Thuan over on LumberJocks suggested shellac or even a French polish. To be honest, I didn’t even know what a French polish was, and had to look it up (and it looks a bit complicated for a noob like me). From what I hear, shellac is nice and protective but is more difficult to refinish if needed.

So keeping in mind my limited experience and skills, how would you finish this box?

With my wife’s box, I felt like I had to agonize over every single little step. I needed something I could just “throw together” without worrying too much about how it looked. I just wanted to build something, and for it not to take months. Enter the chisel box.

A chisel box doesn’t have to look nice. It’ll rarely leave the shop. Nevertheless, I found myself caring a little too much about it, and had to keep reminding myself, “It’s only a chisel box” as the project went on and things kept going wrong. First the pics, then the lessons learned. Click on a pic for a full-screen version.

Lessons Learned:

1. Use the pencil! If you noticed, the halfway decent chisel (if I do say so myself) which I woodburned onto the front of my chisel box is actually on the back. Way to go, Eric, for botching which side you thought the front was when you woodburned it on! (The box was glued together and I hadn’t cut the lid off yet.) It’s only a chisel box.
2. Use a flush-cut saw to do flush-cut work. I thought I’d glue the two end pieces on a bit too long and then cut them flush with my saw. Well you can see the graze marks on the back of the box where the set of my saw caught the box. It’s only a chisel box.
3. Support plywood when screwing into it. I didn’t have a drill bit small enough, so I couldn’t pre-bore my holes for the screws (hinges and clasp). When I drove the screws in, it started ripping apart my cheap plywood. I had to glue and clamp it back together, further complicating a simple project. It’s only a chisel box.
4. Don’t go all overkill with the nails. I didn’t know what length nails I’d need. I was afraid that butt-jointing plywood with tiny nails wouldn’t be strong enough, so I went with bigger nails. In a couple spots, I got too close to the edge of the plywood and it’s bulged out a little. Don’t ask me why I didn’t use screws. I don’t know. It’s only a chisel box.

All in all, I’m happy with it. It holds my chisels securely with a minimal amount of wood (important considering I have to lug them overseas and back). It looks okay. And I learned a lot even though it was a simple project.

Back at the end of January (yes, 2008), I said that I wanted to make, and I quote myself, “a simple dovetail box.” I planned to make it for my wife. I don’t think I really expected to finish it by Valentine’s Day, but I did expect that it would be done for her birthday (mid-March). That came and went, leaving me with Mothers Day as my next target date. As I finally figured out how to do the lid, it all started coming together very quickly, and I found myself on Mothers Day Eve with a great chance at being done. So here we go:

First off, the hinges. This was quite tricky. First time with hinges, and you’d think I’d have done some research first, but nope. I carefully pared away the mortise for the hinge until I had each one on top and bottom at about 1/16″ deep. As you can see, I’m working at night with just a desk lamp. The kids’ room is just on the other side of those windows, so I can’t use the big bright lights.

Then it was the moment of truth. Sheesh, it seems like near the end of the project, every single thing is a moment of truth. It’s nervewracking. I did read about how easy it is to mess up brass screws, but I didn’t have any steel ones that size to bore the hole with, so I folded over some duct tape and drove the screw in with the tape protecting the screw. I think it worked!

At last. The final moment of truth. Screwing on the other side of the hinges, and seeing how the lid mates with the box. Actually, I had to do a little bit of tweaking (which does not mean I bent the hinges) to get it to mate well, but it did! It’s not perfect, though; the lid is just a bit too far forward, but the sides are flush. I can live with that.

So here are final pictures of the box as I’ll present it to my wife. After I finish it (oil/varnish/mineral spirits), I’ll post it on my Projects page and I’ll give a rundown on how it went overall, what I learned, etc. In a nutshell, though, I’m happy with it overall although there are many things that went wrong and I had to fix - and the fixes don’t look all that great in my eyes. But more on that later. I’m proud to present this box to my amazing wife for Mothers Day, and I’ll also present to her this series of posts so she can see how it came together. Here’s the box!

Okay, okay, so the woodworking community has spent all week talking about how to be safe in the shop, but let’s be real: Accidents happen. So when they do, how do you treat it? From time to time I read in the forums or bulletin boards about treating cuts with Super Glue, and invariably someone questions how safe it is to do so. So for Woodworking Safety Week 2008, I spent a half hour Googling the topic and here’s what I have for you:

It’s fine. Go for it.

Okay, now for the longer answer. One of the first practical uses of Super Glue (also referred to as “CA” for its chemical name, cyanoacrylate) was to treat wounded soldiers during the Vietnam War - to control the bleeding until they could get back to the hospital. It wasn’t just used externally, either - it was apparently used for such things as patching up lacerated livers as well.

CA is a great workshop solution because it instantly and securely seals off the cut and quickly eliminates pain (because the pain, apparently, is from oxygen hitting the exposed nerve endings). It wears off naturally in a day or two, so you may need to reapply - but by then, the bleeding has stopped and the pain is much less anyway. CA apparently also reduces scarring.

Experts (who are these guys anyway?) say that CA can irritate the skin and should not be used on deep cuts. A more helpful “expert” advises that over-the-counter CA is less preferred because it has a cheaper type of methyl alcohol in it. No one seems to have a problem with using CA on smallish surface cuts, especially those that can easily be closed up while glued. For a medical variant of CA, try Dermabond, Band-Aid Liquid Bandage or 3M No-Sting Liquid Bandage Spray.

Personally, I’ve recently become brave enough to try it, and now I’m a big fan of Super Glue. Just last month I ran a marking knife into my thumb up to the nail. After a minute of holding it under the faucet, I dried it off, glued it up and was back to woodworking in minutes, with no worry about bleeding on the workpiece. And just yesterday I ripped a fingernail pretty bad at the pool (when is Swimming Pool Safety Week, anyway?), and put some Super Glue over the nail to help seal it up. Yeah!

In conjunction with Woodworking Safety Week 2008, here is my very first attempt at a video. I think I can give The Wood Whisperer a good run for his money. I’ve got everything he has except woodworking skills, customers, power tools, a nice shop, groupies and sponsors. Other than that, we’re the same. Covered in this video are the chisel, marking knife and saw. Enjoy!

As we kick off Woodworking Safety Week 2008, I thought I’d offer some improvement on marketing it to the woodworking community. It seemed like something was missing: a tagline. I mean, just saying “Woodworking Safety Week 2008″ sounds kind of boring, don’t you think? So I’m proposing the following taglines for your consideration. Please choose the one that sounds most appropriate (or offer your own in the comments below).

P.S. This is just for fun. Marc Spagnuolo is in no way obligated to apply the tagline to this or any other Woodworking Safety Week.

Last week I cut the grooves for my “t-keys” and the other day I glued up the lid. Yesterday, I glued in the t-keys. Here’s a shot of the t-keys just prior to glue-up:

Since I cut the slots by hand, the slight variations in each meant that I had to cut each t-key to match each slot. Even though I carefully fitted each one prior to glue-up, I still had a major glitch with one of them; it wouldn’t go in. When I tried to pull it out, the base of the “t” broke off. So I cleaned it up as best I could and glued in a simple key. Here’s the post-glueup shot:

This morning, I cut off the waste, and then sanded the whole thing down from 80 to 240 grit. Here are the before and after pics (click to enlarge):

I’m definitely feeling it all coming together very quickly now. All that’s left is to veneer the top and bottom of the lid panels, chamfer/shape the lid, glue it on, cut it off and hinge it up!

The moment of truth. The point of no return. The bridge beyond despair. Okay, I made that last one up. Time to glue up the lid.

I felt like a surgeon preparing for a big operation. First, I did about three dry runs to practice the glue-up, assembly and “cord clamping”. Finally, it was time. I laid out all of my equipment in the order in which I’d need it: glue, spreader (the innards of a foam brush), two squares for the opposite corners, parachute cord and a pencil for tightening, small clamp to hold the pencil in place, and a ruler to measure the diagonals for square. It was harrowing and yet fun.

When it was all said and done, I had a squared-up lid. For the cord clamp, I actually ran the cord in the key slots. I then tied two loops near each end and ran a pencil through those loops. Then I wound the pencil up as tightly as possible, and used the clamps merely to keep the pencil from spinning back the other way.

One last shot just for a different angle:

Next stop: Cutting the keys, and slicing off some veneer for the top and bottom of the lid.