Maple & Cherry Jewelry Box

[Kurt Aebi]

Below is the Maple & Cherry Jewelry box I made for my niece's graduation present.

The sides are 1/4" Maple, dividers are 1/8" Maple. The inside skirting and bottom skirting is 1/8" Cherry and provides the stackability to the box. The top is 1/2" Cherry and 1/2" Spalted Maple.

I finished it with 6 coats of water-based polyurethane.

I got the design from an issue of Woodsmith. LOML thought my niece would think the glitter felt would be a cool touch. I had my doubts, but I don't think it looks bad at all.

Let me know what you think!

[Rusty Hughes, Indy]

Very Well Done! That spalted maple sure looks nice. Thanks for showing the pictures.

[Sparky Paessler]

Great job Kurt! I love that spalted maple. Haven't made anything "flat" out of it yet but have turned a few. Keep up the good work.

Sparky

[Jim Becker]

What a great gift, Kurt! Nice job on this "tower of power". I'm sure she'll be looking from someone to fill it up...

[Dick Parr]

Very nice Kurt!

[Chris Padilla]

Interesting design, Kurt. I love the lid. Are the layers all loose or can they be mechanically tied somehow?

[Kurt Aebi]

Thanks Guys,

Aside from making bee hive supers for my father, this was my first box-joint project. The bee hive supers were so much easier as tear-out and other blemishes are no big deal as the bees will fill them very quickly with wax and the blemish magically disappears.

I first tried my 6" sears stacked dado set and got very bad tear out, even with a backer board. I tried using a cheap old dovetail jig and the cheap (not inexpensive, though) bushings for my Bosch router came apart and I ended up ruining the 1/4" plastic template. (I can't believe that they make them from 2 pieces and press fot them together - what poor craftsmanship) Finally I made a box-joint jig for the router table and used a 1/4" straight bit - worked very well with littl eor no tear out at all. What a learning experience that was. Anywell the results were good, so it was not all in vain.

I got the Spalted Maple from a short end at the local sawmill when I picked up my Cherry for my kitchen cabinets. It was a 2" x 8" by about a foot piece that was laying around and the guy loading my trailer grabbed it to use as a spacer for the stack of cherry. Imagine my surprise when I resawed it and found the "burried trerasure" beneath the rough weathered exterior. I knew I had to keep it for a very special project and I think this definitely counts as special!

Chris - No it doesn't mechanically connect, just nests neatly when stacked. I am going to do a bunch more (4) jewelry boxes for my other nieces for christmas and there is a round style that the stack swing out to expose each drawer and I am looking forward to that challenge.