Bowfront Jewelry Box

[stvrowe]

I had some leftover 8/4 Sapele from Abby's Dresser that was crying out to be turned into something special (Christmas gift for my wife).  This is my first continuous grain mitered box (the grain lines match around the entire perimeter of the box) and I am quite pleased with the result.  The case is 16mm thick stock with miters joined with 4mm dominos.  The overall box dimensions were sized based on the length of the material available.  The drawer material is hard maple with a lock rabbet joining the sides to the front.  The drawer mounting is on hard maple rails with grooves in the drawer sides.  The pulls are made from Cocobola that were profiled on the router table, rough shaped at the disc sander, with final shaping done Granat with the RO90 mounted upside down in the workbench vise.  The pulls had domino slots cut before separation from the large profile and the slots were milled in the drawer front before the bow profile was made. The 4mm dominos for the pulls were sanded down to a length of 12mm to fit the slots.  The finish is Deft semi-gloss lacquer.

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[MrGinCT]

Very nice work.  I'm sure she'll be very pleased with it.

 

[mike_aa]

Very nice!  The grain matching on the top, sides, and drawer fronts really makes the piece stand out.  Very clever idea on the drawer pulls!

Thanks for sharing!

Mike A.

 

[flair woodworks]

Nice design, Steve.  I like the wrap-around grain effect.

 

[VW mick]

[member=2162]Steve[/member]

That's really neat. I like it

 

[Wooden Skye]

Steve

Great design, and I am sure your wife will enjoy the gift.

 

[Lbob131]

Very nice indeed.
What cutter did you use to make  the  drawer front  attachment joints?

 

[peter halle]

Steve,  Your wife will LOVE it!  You are amazing and have the nack of marrying design and materials to create great things.  Kudos indeed.

Peter

 

[nclemmons]

Nice design, Steve.

Really love Sapele grain and your wrapped design really does it justice.

Did you bandsaw / pattern route the fronts?  And curious as to the sequence of curving and then joining the fronts to the sides of the drawers.

With this kind of work, I'm sure your wife will allow you to continue to buy whatever tools you want!

Thanks for sharing -

 

[chrisrosenb]

Very nice.

 

[flair woodworks]

Hey Steve,

Have you thought about dividing up the insides of the drawers?

 

[Jesse Cloud]

Great job Steve!
You really have a good eye for grain.
The pulls totally rock!

 

[stvrowe]

Thanks guys.  As far as answering the questions;

The lock rabbet was cut with an adjustable groover on the shaper to cut the slot in the drawer front.  The table saw with a slot cutter  blade was used to mill the slot in the drawer side. 

The sequence of making the bowfront and drawers was:  1) The  box was assembled and I used a paper template applied to the top and a bandsaw to rough out the bow on the box.  2) I used a disc sander to sand to the line on the template.  3) Using assembled drawers, I pulled the top drawer flush with the top of the bow on the box and marked the curve with a pencil.  Then roughed this out on the bandsaw then sanded to the line on disc sander.  4) I then used the top drawer as a pattern for the other two drawers, bandsawing and sanding them to shape tweaking on them to make sure all the fronts matched across the entire drawer width.  5) Finish sanding was done with the RO90 with the hard pad up to 120 grit.  For 180 grit and beyond, I used the interface pad.

I will install dividers when the layout is decided.  I was wanting to put a ring bar in one of the drawers but the Rockler version is 24" long, is made of velvet, foam and cardboard and they want $30 for it.  If the ring bar was wood, the price would be over $16/bd-ft and those materials are about as far from exotic as I can imagine.  My wife is an avid quilter/sewer to I think we can figure out a cost effective solution to this.

The most difficult part of the construction was 1) proper positioning of the drawer guide rails (I milled stopped grooves) and 2) keeping track of the pieces to make the box continuous grain all around.