Well, maybe not ‘era’, right now it’s more like ‘error’…

I’ve finally begun my ‘serious’ study of woodturning and, after making several practice pieces, decided to try my hand at a ‘real’ project.  I decided not to bite off too much on my first project so, after a bit of research and soul searching, decided to make a lidded box.  And what would the box hold, you ask?

Why, toothpicks, of course!  Here it is:

I started with a nice piece of cherry cutoff, which, until now, didn’t have a proper home – I knew I’ve been saving these scraps for something!

I turned it down to a cylinder and then, turning a tenon on both ends (these are used to mount the two halves while the pieces are hollowed), separated the top and bottom pieces so they could be hollowed out.  I turned the top first since this establishes the size of the lip that needed to be cut into the bottom.  All went surprisingly well and I sanded and finished the inside before moving on to the bottom piece.  The finish, by the way, is a blend of Mineral Oil and Bees Wax – food safe.

I then ‘turned’ my attention to the bottom half and was happily hollowing out the inside until I suddenly realized that I was shaping to the same profile as the top (thinking about creating an inset, rather than a lip)!  Fortunately, I stopped JUST in time and left just enough wall thickness to provide the lip.

The next step was to cut the lip and this needed to be cut slowly so that the top is a nice tight friction fit.  All went well for about three trial cuts, as I slowly eased the size downward.  Then, for some reason I fail to understand, I took just a little bit more on the next pass and suddenly the lip was smaller than I wanted! Darn.  (Not exactly what I said)

The top fit, but it was loose, it would no longer stay in place if the box was tilted to the side.  I considered trimming off the undersized lip and trying to make another one, but, being from one piece of wood, the grain matched nicely as it was and I’d lose some of that matching if I attempted to resize the lip.  I imagined myself trying multiple passes to get it ‘just right’, each time making it shorter, and ending up with a bottom that was only tall enough for HALF toothpicks!  Sigh.  In any case, I decided to stick with the loose top…  Next time.

All in all, however, I’m pleased with the result!