Marc - Today, I'm gonna prove once and for all
that I actually do use my lathe
to make this cute little ringbox.
(upbeat music)
I've gotten a lot of crap over the years
for wearing my platinum wedding band
and just about every video around spinning tools,
so I figured it was finally time to do something about it.
And now I'm wearing a QALO silicone ring.
It's very lightweight, feels good on the finger,
and I can be comfortable that if something snags on that,
this thing is just gonna break
instead of taking my finger with it.
But that means I need a safe place to store my ring,
and that was the inspiration for this project.
So the lid just pops off like this.
It's a very simple design.
The base has the tenon,
and essentially the top is the mortise.
And you can see you can fit
quite a few rings or small pieces of jewelry in there.
Now because I don't turn all that often,
sometimes I need a refresher,
so I just wanna send a quick shout-out to Mike Waldt,
gentleman on YouTube who has a great video
on how to make a lidded box,
and I kinda used that to get my brain
back in the game of turning,
so I knew exactly what I was doing
when I approached the project.
Now, that said, I still had a couple of stages
to get to this point.
Let me show you the predecessors to this one.
So here's attempt number one.
Kinda basic in shape, right, this domed top.
I don't know, kinda ugly, looks like a pantyhose container.
Why do I know that?
Well, look, what I do on the weekend
is my business, not yours.
And you can see I just was perfecting
the concept of the mortise and tenon,
just to make sure I could get it to work,
and that was a success but clearly
this was not a very elegant design, I didn't like it,
but, you know, it's serviceable, got the job done.
Now version two, I got a little more into
making some kind of design on the top
that I thought looked good.
But this one's way off balance, right,
if you look at the size of the lid
and the size of the base, they're too close.
Alright, so this one's clunky,
there's a lot of extra solid wood in here
that doesn't need to be there.
Much larger than it needs to be,
but I liked where it was going.
Version three kinda didn't get off the ground
cause I got a little bit of a snag
having to do with a dropped GoPro camera.
You know, it happens.
It's the things we go through for good video.
And then finally, version four,
which should've been version three,
but version four is a little more proportioned nicely,
right, and got the mortise and tenon here perfected
for a really nice fit, a nice indent on the bottom here
that gives it a good balance,
and overall happy with the product.
So let me show you how I made it.
I used twelve quarter stock for this
but you can use anything
that gets you the size box you want.
I marked the center point on both ends
and mount the blank on the lathe.
I start bringing the blank into round
by using a square bicarbon turning tool.
Alternatively, you could use either a bowl gouge
a roughing gouge for this step.
Once all of the flat areas are gone,
I add a small dovetail shoulder to each end.
The shoulders are cut on a slight angle
to match the angle of the dovetails jaws on my chuck,
which we'll use in a minute.
To separate the lid from the base,
I'll use a parting tool.
Once I'm left with a little nub
connecting the two pieces, I use a saw
to do the final separation.
The smaller piece is the lid
and we'll start working on that one first.
I'll pop out the chuck spur and thread on the chuck.
So now we can work on the inside of the lid.
This is essentially a mortise of sorts
so I'll start out by hollowing out the center to my liking,
staying at least a quarter inch away from the outside edge.
The round cutter I'm using makes it very easy
to make a nice, graceful curve.
Once I'm happy with the depth,
I switch back to the square cutter to refine the mortise.
The edge should be nice and straight
for at least a quarter inch in depth.
From there, the surface can just blend into the curve.
So I'll use a round cutter again to do the final blending.
The thickness of the outer wall here isn't critical.
I shoot for about a quarter inch,
knowing that I still have some stock to remove
from the outside surface.
With the square tool, I'll true up
the outside lip of the lid.
If you don't do this, the two halves of the box
may not come together perfectly.
The interior is then sanded thoroughly to about 500 grit.
If you want, you can actually apply finish
to the inside of the lid right on the lathe.
So now let's work on the base.
The first step is to create the tenon.
We'll use the lid to check our progress as we go.
Keep in mind that if you go too far and the fit is loose,
you can always remove the tenon and start over,
assuming you have enough stock in the blank.
Eventually, I end up with a nice snug fit
and a tenon that's about a quarter inch long.
The next step involves turning the outside of the lid,
so we need to attach it to the base.
If the fit is loose, the lid will just fly off,
so I use a piece of paper towel to help snug it up.
Now I can turn the outside surface and true it up.
And if you wanna have some fun with the shape, go for it.
I'm just going for a boring straight side.
The lid has way more stock than I need,
so I'm making a couple of reference lines.
One for the start of a decorative raised area
and one for the shoulder that leads to that raised area.
Everything above the top line is waste.
For the decorative top, I create
a three eighths of an inch shoulder,
leaving a quarter inch high raised area.
I can then begin to gently round over that raised section
into a shape that looks good to my eye.
From there, I can easily round over the edges.
And now it's time for some more sanding.
In fact, let's sand the sides while we're at it.
Now if the lid was too tight,
some folks may have trouble removing it,
not that it ever happens to me.
Mine usually slip right off,
but if that should happen to you,
though it didn't happen for me,
you can put the blank in the oven
at the lowest setting for about 15 to 20 minutes,
and that should shrink the wood just enough
to allow you to pop it right off.
With the lid off, we can start to work
on the inside of the base.
This is just like the work we did on the lid.
Go as deep as you like and keep the tenon wall
at least three sixteenths of an inch thick.
You could go thinner, but that starts
to get a little bit fragile.
Use an elaborate depth gauge
to transfer the depth to the outside
and then draw a line about half of an inch down from there.
That's the bottom of the box,
and we'll part the blank right on that line.
The remaining nub in the chuck will now serve
as a jam chuck for the final stage of turning.
This is pretty easy to do by simply
cutting a slight tapered tenon
into the end of the blank nub.
After a few test fits, we should
have a pretty snug connection.
The bottom of the base receives
a slight hollow in the middle,
and a nice perimeter ring
that ensures that the base won't wobble.
As I started working, I noticed that the base
didn't really feel secure enough,
so I used the paper towel trick again to snug things up.
And the final shaping involves
rounding over the bottom corner and then
it's another round of sanding.
Next up, the finish, but first...
Now I just wanna take a break in the action here
to talk a little bit about the tools that I'm using
cause I know that this is gonna come up.
These are Easy Wood tools and they're based
on that sort of carbide insert system, right?
So when you get a dull edge, you just kinda
loosen it, turn it, tighten it back up,
and you're back to work,
and you can get them in all kinds of shapes,
and they're very versatile and very beginner friendly
because ultimately these things are just scrapers,
and kind of like a scraper versus a plane in the shop,
with a plane, you have a tendency
to tear out a little bit more
and you have to know how to use the tool
and have it really well-tuned so that it doesn't tear out.
And you gotta know your material as well.
Kind of the same thing in wood turning.
Traditional tools have to be very sharp,
takes a little bit more in the way of a learning curve,
and if you mess up, you can mess up big
if something goes wrong, but it's experience
that prevents that from happening.
These, on the other hand, are very beginner friendly.
It makes the craft of wood turning much more approachable
to folks who are just getting into it,
because everybody fears that being kicked back, right,
and these scrapers help prevent that from happening
or make it a little bit less likely to happen.
So I'm a big proponent of these.
I think anything that gets people into the craft
and lowers the learning curve is a good thing,
because ultimately someone may use these things for years
and say, "You know what, I wanna take it to the next level.
"I really want a glass smooth finish right off of the tool,
"without having to do a whole lot of sanding,"
so they may go and pick up a skew chisel for the first time,
and look up how to use it and suddenly,
they fall in love with this thing, right?
So I don't understand the folks who wanna, you know,
criticize these tools and say it's not real wood turning
if you're using these, because ultimately,
this entry level stuff may be the thing
that gets someone deeper in to the craft.
And for someone like me, who doesn't turn that often,
this is kinda all I need.
And, you know, I have these tools, I know how to use them,
but darn, it's difficult for me to pick them up
when these are just so easy to use
and I don't have to sharpen anything.
So that's what I have to say about that.
I know some folks will disagree with me, but you're wrong.
The finish is nothing more than a satin wiping poly.
I soak the box liberally and rub it in
with a 500 grit abrasive pad.
Then I wipe off the excess and let it dry for a few hours.
The second coat goes on in exactly the same way.
Once completely dry, add a little wax,
paste wax or renaissance wax, whatever,
to the mating surfaces of the two pieces.
This will ensure that the box is easy to open
even when the humidity changes.
Well, there it is, a nice, simple lidded box.
Now the cool thing about this design
is you can go in any direction you want.
You can do all kinds of different things with the top,
maybe shape the sides a little bit.
I see a lot of cool potential for this.
You could also use different species of wood.
Imagination a lamination of multiple species,
and you've got this almost segmented turning
kind of look to it,
so lot of different directions you can go.
And also, batch these things out.
These will go fast if you show them
to your friends and family, so make a bunch of them
because I think people will love to have these,
and they're so quick to make.
Alright, so thanks for watching, everybody,
and thanks to QALO for sponsoring this episode.
We'll catch you next time.
(soft guitar music)