Oak and Holly Box

[frugal]

At the start of this year I tried to make a Spalted Holly and maybe-walnut box from some holly that a friend had given me and some wood I had picked up at auction. After a while it was determined that the walnut was more likely to be elm and I had a couple of disasters with the veneering of the holly.

All of which was a bit of a problem as the box was supposed to be for a good friends birthday at the end of March... With one thing and another this has been restarted about 3 times, but as they say - third time the charm.

The final box has the sides made from reclaimed oak from a re-enactment village we both used to go to, and the veneer and the tray was made from the holly that she kindly gave me a couple of years ago. I did not think about it at the time, but as she is a practising pagan the combination of oak and holly was probably auspicious as well as all of the wood having a shared story.

The oak has been treated with wire wool and vinegar to blacken it and the the whole lot was then finished with shellac sanding sealer and Briwax. The bottom of the box and the tray were lined with black velvet and the hinges were the precision box hinges from Rutlands.

The box was constructed with a simple mitre joints with a groove at the top and bottom of the sides for the lid and base. Once all six sides were in place the top was sawn off on the bandsaw.





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The stitch markers in the tray were made by my wife as no box should be given empty.

I didn't do a WIP as the recipient is one of my Flickr contacts so she would have seen the photos as they were happening and I did not want to spoil the surprise.

 

[Boz62]

That's lovely. I like the wood combination

Boz

 

[monkeybiter]

That Holly's gorgeous.

 

[Mr Ed]

Nice work. That is some crazy spalting on the holly - has it affected the structure of the wood at all?

Ed

 

[Haldane]

Fantastic contrast in the timber the spalting in the holy is stunning.
It looks great


Dave

 

[frugal]

Nice work. That is some crazy spalting on the holly - has it affected the structure of the wood at all?

Ed

I will admit that it took a few attempts to get the best out of the holly, enough attempts that I have used most of the good stuff. The spalting has made it quite soft in places, not so soft that it is crumbling or rotten, but enough that you need to take care when planing that you do not get catches.

In the end I gave up on planes or scrappers and resorted to sandpaper to get the finish I needed on the holly. The oak was fine and it was finished with the scraper.

I put several coats of Shellac Sanding Sealer on on the box working on the theory that it was enough like french polish that adding more layers would increase the depth of the finish. You can not see it from the pictures but there is a semi-gloss finish to the oak. Not quite enough so that you can read the newspaper in the reflection, but enough to make out the headlines at least :wink:

 

[LarryS.]

frugal how did you go about ensuring that when you fixed the hinges that the lid was perfectly aligned ?

 

[frugal]

frugal how did you go about ensuring that when you fixed the hinges that the lid was perfectly aligned ?

I do not know if this is the best way or not, but it worked for me: The hinges have two halves as you can see in this picture:

The leaf on the left has a distinct edge on the top and bottom on the knuckle side. So I lay the hinge on the box exactly 50mm in from the edge with that leaf on the box and the edge of the leaf exactly on the edge of the box, then marked around it with a sharp marking knife. On a scrap bit of wood I set up the router to the correct depth to take the hinge. Then the scary bit, I routed almost up to the line on the box (I have never been so scared in my woodworking career) and finally chopped to the line with a very sharp chisel. I then I did the same process with the lid. Because I had used the same side of the same hinge I knew that they were the same distance in from the outside edge of the box.

I think that if I did it again I would inset the hinge a bit further so that the knuckle did not protrude quite so far out, at which point my technique would need to be modified because I could not use the hinge as the guide to mark out the area to cut.

I was fortunate enough that there was an article in a magazine out at the time I was doing the hinges that showed how to get the screws lines up together. I ended up marking the centre with an awl, then drilled a 1.5mm pilot hole, then with the screw in a particular orientation I pushed it in as far as it could go and then tightened it up. As they all started in the same orientation they all ended up in the same orientation.

 

[Crooked Tree]

Very impressive holly. I think that I quite like the spalted look in a number of the projects that I have seen. Must get some spalted something-or-other!

Is the blackening of the oak just done by painting on vinegar with wire wool dissolved in it? I have a chair which I suspect was ammonia blackened oak that needs re-blacking in areas. This might be the easiest way to do it.

 

[LarryS.]

thanks for your very thorough reply frugal. I tried to do something similar on a box I made but because one of the hinges was just a hair off straight (and I mean a hair) the lid exaggerated this out to the front where it was then a millimetre and a bit out, which just annoyed the life out of me !!

Very brave using the router, I'd have bottled it !!

 

[frugal]

Is the blackening of the oak just done by painting on vinegar with wire wool dissolved in it? I have a chair which I suspect was ammonia blackened oak that needs re-blacking in areas. This might be the easiest way to do it.

I soaked some wire wool in white vinegar for a couple of days, then I used a new piece of wire wool to apply it. As there was a large gap between the first and second time I used the solution I filtered it into an old jam jar with a coffee filter paper to get rid of the rusty bits of wire wool. Even after leaving the solution for several months it still worked.

I applied about 3 coats of the solution with wire wool. For the first coat or two it sent more blue than black, there was also a fine rust residue that was left that gave it a slight brown coating, but that came off easily.

You do have to be careful if you need to scrape or sand the wood after you have applied that solution as the black colour does not penetrate very far and after only a couple of passes with a scrapper you can remove it completely. As I found out when after I had applied the solution it highlighted a couple of flaws in my preparation

In order to get the colour as dark as possible I finished the oak with dark Briwax and the holly with clear Briwax.

 

[Mattty]

Nice Job Frugal, and some lovely timber. That is a great present for someone.

 

[OPJ]

Nice box. I really like what you have done with the oak.

Regarding the WIP photos, that's not an excuse - you could have uploaded them after she'd received the box!! :roll: :wink:

 

[woodbloke]

F - nice combination of timbers...that holly looks wicked though. Must see if I can get hold of a lump from somewhere...Yandles maybe in April? - Rob

 

[TheTiddles]

Very impressive holly. I think that I quite like the spalted look in a number of the projects that I have seen. Must get some spalted something-or-other!

There's some in your garage!

 

[frugal]

F - nice combination of timbers...that holly looks wicked though. Must see if I can get hold of a lump from somewhere...Yandles maybe in April? - Rob

Everything I read says that holly is white with little figuring. If I did not know the people who chopped the tree down then I would never have believed it was holly by the look of it.

I think that a lot of the figuring came from the fact that there were two trunks twined together. A lot of the veneer fell in two at the bark line between the two.

 

[oddsocks]

That is a very impressive bit of holly, perfectly set in the box and dividers......I keep telling myself that one day I will make a box and the examples on the forum are far better inspiration than any box making book.

Dave

 

[stevebuk]

having just built my own box from walnut i can understand your excitement at this one, its beautiful.
I have also just scroll sawn some holly, but nothing like yours, just the plain white stuff, but its warm looking after an oiling.
can i just ask, how are the insert put together, are they just butt jointed or half lap?

many thanks

 

[frugal]

can i just ask, how are the insert put together, are they just butt jointed or half lap?

I followed the technique that Andrew Crawford uses in his Boxes book.

The main tray is dovetailed together, however with the spalting you can not see it in the real thing let alone the photos. The dividers are held in place with a little glue and a panel pin hammered in from the outside with the head cut off and filed down to make them practically invisible.

If I was doing it again I would probably try to route out dados and shoulders for the dividers as the pieces slipped on the first attempt and I had to force them apart to try again which resulted in a chip being knocked out of the side of the divider.