hampton
Shohin
I've been working on this project to pass the time between waiting for the weather to warm up, golf season to start, and the rest of my repotting stuff to come in the mail.
In modern fashion I'll start with the finished product. If you're interested in the process feel free to keep going, if not thanks for stopping by!
Poplar box with oak banding felted/lead lined interior. Finish is Minwax Dark Walnut with 4 coats of Polycrlic. All hand cut, no fasteners - if I were doing this again I would probably do splined or doweled corners and do all of the dados on the router table. (I did drill the dowel holes on the press, I couldn't be bothered to use a brace.)
The dovetails could have been better but overall I'm pleased with the outcome.
Bad photo of the top view construction drawing. This is more or less how it turned out. Fortunately I didn't do too much mock up, I think I would have reduced the interior storage space which would have prevented adding the felt (which was a game time decision).
Cutting dovetails. Not pictured: dovetail saw and countless Polar seltzer cans I leave in my basement.
Cut dados for all the cross dividers shown in the top down. I knew from the outset I wanted to line the box in leather, primarily for tool protection and noise dampening. After more consideration I thought there could be damage to the leather and box from repeatedly dropping tools into the slots. I decided on lining the bottom and tool dividers with a dense felt.
I ended up going with a felt pad made to prevent floor damage. It had a permanent 3M tissue adhesive - after a number of test applications with clamping it proved to damage the wood and felt before the adhesive gave way.
Leather was sourced from a random Amazon scraps box - I believe it was 3# for $20.00. I was fairly happy with the product, a majority of the leather was from the same garment/product having the same color/finish.
The next test was adhering the leather to felt/wood. Back to investigating - it turns out one of Titebond's original uses was attaching leather drive belts to drive wheels. Franklin International still makes a hide glue product but I figured we'd use the glue on hand. With that knowledge I setup a few tests
1a. Leather > Wood with Super77
1b. Leather > Wood with Titebond 3
2a. Leather > Felt with Super77
2b. Leather > Felt with Titebond 3
Following the recommended curing/bonding instructions for both products I found that Titebond produced a much better bond between the materials.
On to the arduous process of cutting and gluing the felt and leather pieces. I took my time starting this part - I was a bit unsure how it would go and drug my feet.
Terrible phone photograph - I was placing the felt and then applying a liberal amount of Titebond. The felt had a tendency to soak up the glue, I found it helpful to pre-cut the leather before applying glue.
One thing to note - I applied the felt pads, cut out the dados then applied the leather as one piece and cut out the dados. The cuts would have been significantly more exact if I had cut the leather and felt in one pass with a sharp blade. This wasn't too much of an issue but definitely a note for future applications.
After glue up I had a number of clamps/blocks to make sure the materials had good contact. I might make clamping jigs in the future to make this easier/ensure even pressure.
Dry fitting the pieces. At this point I wanted to make sure I had a uniform offset around the exterior for the oak banding to attach to. Trimmed the leather to fit using a marking gauge with new cutting wheel.
Time to figure out this handle.
I was inspired by traditional carpenters toolboxes and in keeping with the fastener-less theme I decided to use dowel pins for the uprights and handle piece.
This image also shows the oak banding being attached to the top providing two primary functions, I'm hoping the harder wood proves more durable and gives a cleaner line to the interior leather work.
Once the oak glue up had dried it was onto finishing. There's no glamour in applying finish, waiting, reapplying, waiting, etc. - so here's the final product again.
Thanks for the time and have a wonderful afternoon!
In modern fashion I'll start with the finished product. If you're interested in the process feel free to keep going, if not thanks for stopping by!
Poplar box with oak banding felted/lead lined interior. Finish is Minwax Dark Walnut with 4 coats of Polycrlic. All hand cut, no fasteners - if I were doing this again I would probably do splined or doweled corners and do all of the dados on the router table. (I did drill the dowel holes on the press, I couldn't be bothered to use a brace.)
The dovetails could have been better but overall I'm pleased with the outcome.
Bad photo of the top view construction drawing. This is more or less how it turned out. Fortunately I didn't do too much mock up, I think I would have reduced the interior storage space which would have prevented adding the felt (which was a game time decision).
Cutting dovetails. Not pictured: dovetail saw and countless Polar seltzer cans I leave in my basement.
Cut dados for all the cross dividers shown in the top down. I knew from the outset I wanted to line the box in leather, primarily for tool protection and noise dampening. After more consideration I thought there could be damage to the leather and box from repeatedly dropping tools into the slots. I decided on lining the bottom and tool dividers with a dense felt.
I ended up going with a felt pad made to prevent floor damage. It had a permanent 3M tissue adhesive - after a number of test applications with clamping it proved to damage the wood and felt before the adhesive gave way.
Leather was sourced from a random Amazon scraps box - I believe it was 3# for $20.00. I was fairly happy with the product, a majority of the leather was from the same garment/product having the same color/finish.
The next test was adhering the leather to felt/wood. Back to investigating - it turns out one of Titebond's original uses was attaching leather drive belts to drive wheels. Franklin International still makes a hide glue product but I figured we'd use the glue on hand. With that knowledge I setup a few tests
1a. Leather > Wood with Super77
1b. Leather > Wood with Titebond 3
2a. Leather > Felt with Super77
2b. Leather > Felt with Titebond 3
Following the recommended curing/bonding instructions for both products I found that Titebond produced a much better bond between the materials.
On to the arduous process of cutting and gluing the felt and leather pieces. I took my time starting this part - I was a bit unsure how it would go and drug my feet.
Terrible phone photograph - I was placing the felt and then applying a liberal amount of Titebond. The felt had a tendency to soak up the glue, I found it helpful to pre-cut the leather before applying glue.
One thing to note - I applied the felt pads, cut out the dados then applied the leather as one piece and cut out the dados. The cuts would have been significantly more exact if I had cut the leather and felt in one pass with a sharp blade. This wasn't too much of an issue but definitely a note for future applications.
After glue up I had a number of clamps/blocks to make sure the materials had good contact. I might make clamping jigs in the future to make this easier/ensure even pressure.
Dry fitting the pieces. At this point I wanted to make sure I had a uniform offset around the exterior for the oak banding to attach to. Trimmed the leather to fit using a marking gauge with new cutting wheel.
Time to figure out this handle.
I was inspired by traditional carpenters toolboxes and in keeping with the fastener-less theme I decided to use dowel pins for the uprights and handle piece.
This image also shows the oak banding being attached to the top providing two primary functions, I'm hoping the harder wood proves more durable and gives a cleaner line to the interior leather work.
Once the oak glue up had dried it was onto finishing. There's no glamour in applying finish, waiting, reapplying, waiting, etc. - so here's the final product again.
Thanks for the time and have a wonderful afternoon!
