Woodworker's Journal 1992-16-6, страница 56

EASY-TO-MAKE GIFTS, TOYS A ACCESSORIES

One of the busiest booths at this year's Boston Buyer's Market of American Crafts belonged to Ford Thomas and his company. Bench-works. This gem of a little jewelry box is one of his best-selling designs—and a glance at the photo should leave little dotibl as to just why. Sure, it's basically just a simple box. but details like choice of woods, a clever wooden hinge, and a lid lift and feet that share a common design theme all combine to give this box "heirloom" appeal.

If you like this box and plan to make one—think again—and make two, three or more. As with most woodworking, the lime spent in box making is usually spent in getting setups right, not in actual culling and assembly. Mill enough stock for several boxes, and your efforts will be we 11-rewarded.

Since he's a production woodworker. Ford Thomas makes these boxes in

multiples. But the fact that Ford's design helps him economize on set-up and cutting time should also result in savings for you if you make only one. One way Ford saves time is to employ grooves wherever possible (hat are the thickness of his table saw blade. For example, ihe grooves lor the box bottom, lid panel, tray supports and splines, plus the tray bottom groove, are all V» in. wide, so they require only a single pass with the sawblade to cut. Ford actually uses a thin-kerf blade for his spline kerfs (the same blade that's used to separate the lid from the box. since these operations are done one after the other), but if you don't have a thin-kerf blade no one will ever notice the difference.

Boxes like this are showpieces for choice stock, and we certainlv don't

Heirloom

Jewelry

Box

recommend using oak. pine or any other plain wood. The box shown is a combination of cocobolo and bird's-eye maple, with ebony accents, but other equivalent woods w ill also be fine.

The Box:

When ii comes to the actual work involved, a basic mitercd-corner box is probably the simplest type of box to make. Remove the tray, the wooden

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