Sharpening box

[ear3]

Changing over my tool cabinet got me inspired to put some order into my sharpening gear, which was distributed among a couple of small cardboard boxes or just loose in one of the drawers of a metal filing cabinet under my bench.

So I decided to construct a wooden box that would hold everything I needed in one place.  I had a bunch of cherry scrap left over from the office desk I built last summer, so this project was also a good opportunity to cut into the scrap pile.

Box joinery was just glued mitered edges, after planing the wood down to 1/2" for the outer box, and 1/4 for the inner tray:

View attachment 1

I used my Incra miter gauge on the table saw to cut 1/8" slots for the dividers to keep the sharpening stones separated:

View attachment 2

Used a router plane to remove the v-ridge from the bottom the kerf left by the table saw blade, and create a flat bottom for the dividers:

View attachment 3

Nice thing about mitered joints, especially on thinner wood, is that they can just be glued with blue tape:

View attachment 4

I was so excited that for a couple of the dividers I got to use up this 24" x 3" x 1/8" cherry plank that has been in my shop now for 15 years:

View attachment 5

Back in 2003-4, when I was just starting to get into carpentry, I was looking to go beyond the pine and poplar lumber that I used for my first few projects, but didn't yet have any machinery that would allow me to thickness wood.  So I picked up this thin cherry plank at an art supply store on Canal street in Manhattan -- I forget now what I had in mind when I got it, but obviously never used it for anything.  I would run into every few years when rearranging my shop (it sat for the longest time in a plastic crate in the loft), hold it in my hands for a bit wondering if I should toss it, then put it back where I found it for another few years.  See?  It pays off in the end to hold on to your scrap.

Dividers (the rest of which were thicknessed to 1/8" on the planer -- and 1/4" for the middle one) were ripped to sit a bit lower than the case to give better access to the stones:

View attachment 6

Used same mitering treatment to make a tray that sits in the box next to the dividers, so that I could create two levels for my sharpening equipment -- the lower one for the Veritas MKII, which was my first sharpening system, and the upper for the LN honing guide that I now use most:

View attachment 7

Finally, I made a top identical in dimensions top the bottom in all except height.  Used a rabbeting bit on the router table to create a rabbet so that the top fits over the bottom:

View attachment 8

View attachment 9

Cleaned up the exterior surfaces with a smoothing plane and finished with Osmo:

View attachment 14  View attachment 15

I've been trying to use smoothing plane rather than sander more recently, as the surface ultimately pops much more when planed.  The grain of this cherry was cooperative, and did not frustrate my efforts at all like other woods sometimes do.

Here is the assembled box, with components added:

View attachment 10  View attachment 11  View attachment 12

View attachment 13

That board stuffed in the lid is the stone holder.  I still have to add some latches to keep the top and bottom of the box secured and a handle to move it around, as it will for the moment still live in the metal filing cabinet.  I'm just trying to decide on some decent, inexpensive hardware.  I may also add stops on the top of the box to set the angles on the LN honing guide.  Right now I have a piece of plywood with all the stops that is just a bit too big for the box, but for now I will continue working with it.

 

[ear3]

Didn't find any latch options that I liked, so I decided to experiment with a wooden closing mechanism.

Turned some wenge scrap dowels to 3/8" round:

View attachment 1

Then grabbed the one piece of curly sapele scrap I had left from a dresser I built a couple of years ago, which has an amazing grain pattern:

View attachment 2  View attachment 3

Though unfortunately, as you'll see later, I didn't get the true benefits of the grain, since I sanded down the pieces rather than scraping/planing the visible surface.

Cut some blocks off the sapele and drilled out 3/8" holes on the drill press, employing a makeshift fence and a stop so that they were close in location:

View attachment 4

I then hand sanded the dowel further so that it was slightly undersized for the holes and so would slide in and out easily:

View attachment 5

Layout of basic idea:

View attachment 6

Even with the drill press, there were some slight variations in how the holes lined up, and so the shooting plane was a life saver in bringing them a couple of thousandth of an inch at a time into alignment:

View attachment 7  View attachment 8

Created a roundover on each set with a block plane:

View attachment 9

And then sanded them individually to soften them up further.

I placed them on the box with 2P10 and then a pin nail from behind so that they would hold in position for a screw:

View attachment 10

I almost had a fatal error when the pins I drove popped through the dowel holes:

View attachment 11

But I was able to work with a small needle file to bend and eventually break them inside the holes, and then file away any little nub that remained.

Added screws from inside the box -- 1 screw per block -- taking advantage of the close quarters positioning you can get with the CXS right angle chuck:

View attachment 12

Here's the end result -- action on the dowels is very smooth but secure, aided by a little wax.

View attachment 13  View attachment 14

View attachment 15

This is the first wooden closure I've really built.  I'm pretty happy with the basic design, though they feel a bit chunky for this box.  If this were more than a sharpening box, I might have done a second version that was more streamlined, and perhaps had a more interesting shape than just a single roundover.  I do regret not getting more out of the grain, though, especially since the surface of the cherry on the box came out so well.

I was originally just going to do a store-bought metal handle, but now that I've gone with wood on the closing mechanism, I figure I have to make the handle as well.

 

[Cheese]

I like your latch solution Edward...clever.  [big grin]. It looks very much at home on this box.  I like the box also.

Nice recovery from the pin nail debacle.  [thumbs up]

The grain on the curly sapele almost looks like it's stone.  [cool]

In this photo, what are the steel items with the flat-blade screws in them?

[attachimg=1]

 

[RKA]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] Those are the different jaw sets for the LN honing guide/jig.

 

[ear3]

Thanks [member=44099]Cheese[/member] .  Those are the different jaws for the LN honing guide.  Their 18 and 30 degree jaws are particularly useful because they match the angle for some of their skewed blade planes (as well as a few from LV).

BTW, I realized this morning that I still had some spare Japanese tansu handles from a set I bought a number of years ago, only some of which I used for a QSWO bathroom cabinet a while back.

So I cleaned one up and attached it to the box, and I think the aesthetic matches.  Handle is secured with iron pins hammered into a through hole in the box.  The box gets pretty heavy loaded with all those DMT stones, but the handle mechanism seems strong enough for the task.  Box also fits snugly in the filing cabinet drawer, as it was designed to do.

 

I like your latch solution Edward...clever.  [big grin]. It looks very much at home on this box.  I like the box also.

Nice recovery from the pin nail debacle.  [thumbs up]

The grain on the curly sapele almost looks like it's stone.  [cool]

In this photo, what are the steel items with the flat-blade screws in them?

[attachimg=1]