Cherry box for my wife

[eyekode]

I have been sitting on this project for over a month afraid I would screw up the finish... and I did . But it turned out acceptable.

View image in gallery​

Some firsts for me:

• Mixed my own Sam Maloof style finish
• Resawed the lumber for continuous grain at all corners (you can't tell with QS-ish Cherry and the effect is greatly diminished with the dovetails... live an learn).
• Solid wood bottom.
• Solid wood dividers.
• Carved handle (really bandsawn, scrollsawn, rasp'd and smoothed)

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

And what project would be complete without a "lesson learned":
Sam Maloof's writes about his finish in numerous places. It starts with an equal mixture of BLO, urathane, and either mineral spirits or Tung Oil. I am having a hard time finding pure Tung Oil for a decent price so I went with mineral spirits. His recipe calls for satin urethane. Well we all know that satin urethane is just gloss urethane with extra crap in there to cloud it up. If I want Satin I can do that with steel wool. What does that Maloof guy know anyway?!?

So I used gloss urethane. And it was looking quite good after a few coats, so I went for a few more. Uh oh... at some point it started to develop a gloss, but it was patchy. And this patchy gloss was really hard to remove evenly. In fact I failed here and held at the right angle you can still see it in some places.

As a side note the second part of Sam's finishing schedule is a beeswax, Tung Oil (or turpentine?) and BLO. This stuff is great. I highly recommend it. And if you are looking for beeswax try Michaels with their perennial 50% off one item coupon .

Good luck in your shops!
Salem

 

[Trent Mason]

Excellent work Salem. :eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap I'm sure she'll love it. :icon_thum

 

[Sealeveler]

Them dt are perfect and the rest ain't too shabby either.
Tony

 

[Bill Clemmons]

BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL, work, Salem! :notworthy: I've been using a similar finish to the one you described. I mix equal parts of Varnish / Polyurethane, BLO, and Thinner / Mineral Spirits. Sometimes I substitute Tung oil for the BLO. You can read about this mix in old books and magazines from the first half of the 20th century. They mixed Varnish, BLO, and Turpentine. Substituting thinner or mineral spirits for the turpentine speeds up the drying time greatly. Sometimes after the second coat I switch to a thinned varnish/poly without the oil for my final few coats.

Bill

 

[Joe Scharle]

Looks good from here.

BTW:
Well we all know that satin urethane is just gloss urethane with extra crap in there to cloud it up.

In an emergency, if you don't shake satin; you'll get gloss.

 

[Ray Martin]

Salem,

The box looks beautiful. Now you've got me thinking about presents I need to make for some of my family. Thanks for sharing.

 

[MarkE]

Very nice work!

 

[dlrion]

Typical woodworker...

"If you hold it up to the light just perfect, and hold you breath, and stand on one foot, you can see something wrong right here!"
LOL

It looks pretty dang good from where I am sitting!

Thanks for the tip on beeswax... I have been looking for that.

Dan

 

[eyekode]

Bill, I used turpentine in the wax mixture and I think I may have inhaled too much cause I really like the smell