From Pruning Sucker To Natural Edge Wood Box

Hi, Alan Stratton, from As Wood Turns (www.AsWoodTurns.com) In the last video, I used a piece of a hazelnut
sucker.
Actually, I’m working on up that sucker and I’m going to make in this video this
little box.
Now, I’ve made boxes before but this one is a particular challenge because of its size.
It’s very small and it is smaller than my tools.
To do this, I felt I needed to have it bigger to fit my chuck.
So, I added a walnut disk on the bottom so that I could grab it.
And, I added a walnut disk on the top.
Now my thought for the walnut disk on the top is that it would hide the white hazelnut.
But in actuality, when I got down to it, I had to turn off some of the white and let
it show in order to get it rounded with hanging over.
I did not want a bead on the top edge.
So, in retrospect, I probably should have just wasted off the top – I needed it in
order to hang on to the lid – but waste it off and show the natural hazelnut color
instead of the walnut.
Oh well, there’s always another project.
And there’s more of this hazelnut sucker limb to make more little boxes.
For this box, I’m using the same hazelnut sucker as the last project.
One consideration, the branch is small.
My long nose jaws don’t have a dovetail on the compression grip.
So I worry with a small tenon whether it would hold enough to stay put.
Therefore, I’ll enhance this box with a base that will serve as a holding method as
well as a design feature.
This base is scrap walnut.
I’m mounting it to the face of my chuck jaws with only tail stock pressure.
Then cut it round about half way through – I cannot go all the way without hitting the
steel jaws.
Then cut a dovetail tenon.
Now, I can reverse the mount, drill a mortise to enable an expansion hold on the long nose
jaws.
Later I realized it could have been either held in expansion or compression.
Oh well.
Then finish rounding before reversing it again.
Then drill another 1” mortise on the opposite site to accept a future tenon from the hazelnut.
I made two walnut rings: one for the base and one for the top to hide the white wood
of the hazelnut.
Next to address the hazelnut.
I’m mounting it between centers.
This first operation is fairly simple – cut a tenon to fit the 1” mortise in the walnut
top and bottom.
Next is to mount the whole work piece to the lathe and glue it together using tailstock
pressure.
With the glue dry, I can start the actual work on the small box.
Since I’m using the bark as the exterior, there’s not much to do but to jump to parting
off the lid.
As usual for a box, I’m now mounting the lid using the mortise I cut much earlier.
With this size of hollow, I’m going to drill it out and let it go at that.
Most of my tools are too big for a 1” hole.
Then just a little clean up on the cut lip.
Next I’m switching to the base – mounting it with the mortise that could have been a
tenon.
As usual I need to fit the lid to a tenon on the base.
Also as usual, this is cut, test, cut, test, until it fits.
Now that it fits, I can form the top.
I’ll cut away the mortise and try to form something nice with the top.
Originally, I did not want any white to show.
But the irregular limb did not cooperate.
I wound up cutting a rounded corner that shows some of the hazelnut wood.
I have to be careful to not cut too deep and run into the tenon.
A design alternative would be to remove all the walnut and show the light hazelnut.
In that case, the walnut could have been any scrap wood.
To sand the walnut, I put the lid on the base and secured it with masking tape.
This was enough to sand and finish the lid.
Back to the base, I’m drilling out the hollow with a 7/8” Forstner bit.
Usually now I would reverse the base into my chuck jaws or a jamb chuck.
In this case, I settle on somewhat of a jamb chuck.
I cut a 7/8’ tenon on some scrap and reversed the base onto it.
Then just a little tooling before sanding, signing, and finishing with shellac.
I like my little natural edge box.
This small box had its own challenges and appeal.
It’s also nice to be back at my lathe.
We’ll see you again next week for another woodturning video.
Please give this video a thumbs up, subscribe and tell your friends.
Always wear your full face shield –goggles are not enough protection even on small stuff.
Until next week, this is Alan Stratton from As Wood Turns dot com.
Let’s keep on turning.

From Pruning Sucker To Natural Edge Wood Box

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