Wood Working project plan

Tea Boxes Preliminary notes

Hi Everyone,
Well, I did some preliminary work on the tea boxes and here are some photos and discussion:

Im making three tea boxes for several friends as Christmas presents. Two of the tea boxes are being made from some prefabricated turning blocks from a business in Indiana and the third box is being made from some red birch and Brazilian cherry that Im laminating into a block myself.

The prefab blocks are 6" in diameter x 3" deep and this is a really nice size for a tea box. I want to be able to use as much of the inside volume as I can so I decided to attach a foot to the bottom instead of cutting the foot out of the block which would diminish the inside volume a bit and is what I usually do. Here is what it looks like:


The white stuff is dried glue and you can also see the lid of the box next to it. The lid and the knob on top are made out of white oak and are pinned and glued together.

This is a photo of the two pieces together:


This next photo shows the red birch box and the Brazilian cherry layer separate. Since the cherry layer is smaller in diameter than the rest of the box, I will be using it on the bottom as the foot of the box. Here is that photo:


This is the box with the layers assembled:


And this is the red birch block with the white oak lid on top:


This box will have a Brazilian cherry lid instead of the white oak lid--I just wanted to see how large the box will eventually be.

Tomorrow Im going to turn the first box and its lid and Ill post those pictures when Im done.

See you tomorrow,
VW