small project completed

[colibas]

Thought I would post pictures of a small box I made. It will hold a gift to my parents for their 50th anniversary. 











The darker wood is live oak, a roadsideium plant that was cut down near a friend's house. It's the first wood I've milled from the tree. 

I decided to keep the reclaimed wood vibe with the lid and bottom, which are tongue-and-groove paneling left over from a bookcase project. The pull is carved from live oak, as well.

The pine is unfinished, while the live oak got BLO, two coats of garnet shellac, and wax. 

Sean

[Steve N]

LOML just reminded me I need to get with it on some wine bottle boxes. She give selected wines to people in a box for gifts, special occasions. Yours is just a tad wide, but could be a double barrel affair.


So I heartily approve of the box to house a gift thing, and that is a box that should do well at that task. Whatchagonna fill it with?

[colibas]

They'll get a salad tong set in black walnut, carved with "50" and a cross, heart, and anchor.

[Bill Holt]

I do like the color and the nice dove tails.   I would be hard pressed to duplicate that look with the live oak I have used.

[hbmcc]

I like it!

[C. in Indy]

It is beautiful.

Also I would like to hear more about the Live Oak.   Oak variants fascinate me.   I recently turned some knobs out of a too-bad-to-save Holm Oak coffin plane.  Incredible...  distinct visual grain but virtually no openness in that grain.  

Chris

[colibas]

Growing up in Mississippi, I loved the huge, wild live oaks. So I was excited to work some into a project. The experience was not that fun. The wood is both tough and crumbly, strangely. I tried to make a bowl, but it was too hard to carve. These boards are about 1/4", which was easier to work, but the wood tore and chipped. I'm going to count my blessings on this box and move on to other woods. I am pleased and surprised how well these boards finished. 

I did get a big section that's become my shop stump. 

FWIW, I'm told there are a range of trees that people call "live oak," so generalizations might not be valid.

[DaveLeard]

Beautiful work. I like the way the interior pieces were added to the ends to support the lid. I'm going to use that.

Southern Live Oak or Coastal Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) is the majestic, spreading, moss covered tree seen along the Gulf Coast and up the eastern seaboard, often growing to huge dimensions. It only ranges inland about 80 miles, getting smaller the further it is from the coast. The wood is dense with an interlocking grain and can't be split. The wood was valuable in colonial shipbuilding due to the strength and the occurrence of many "natural crooks" (curves) which lent themselves to shipbuilding.

The 1797 frigate USS Constitution was constructed of Live Oak. During a battle with an English warship the English cannonballs were seen to bounce off the hull of the Constitution, the incident resulting in the nickname "Old Ironsides".

In his book "Building Classic Small Craft" John Gardner, who was on staff at Mystic Seaport, wrote about how old time boatwrights often made their own planes, Live Oak being one of their preferred woods. There was a story about how one of the shops in a large boat yard was floored with heavy Live Oak planks. Occasionally the workers would liberate one for planemaking, carefully installing a substitute plank doctored up to match the original. 

Years ago I used to pick up chunks of treetrunk from the roadside around town, where people had set them for trash pickup. I was collecting for lathe work. The wood had to be split before it had dried much as it would check (randomly split) badly when drying in the round. One day I got a whole 6 foot section of Live Oak trunk, although I knew it wouldn't cleave and would likely check before I could ever afford to hire somebody to come out with a chainsaw and split it. It sat several months and actually had to move with me and my family when we went from being renters to homeowners. I eventually got a guy with a chainsaw out to split it and after that, went after it with a handheld circular saw, then a rip saw. It was completely honeycombed with drying checks, useless. I got one piece from which I turned a knife handle about 3/4 inches in diameter by 6 inches long. The wood was striking though, a chocolate color interspersed with occasional fine white and yellow lines. I've lusted after it ever since and occasionally saw someone selling it sawn and dried, but never coughed up the cash.

[C. in Indy]

In his book "Building Classic Small Craft" John Gardner, who was on staff at Mystic Seaport, wrote about how old time boatwrights often made their own planes, Live Oak being one of their preferred woods. There was a story about how one of the shops in a large boat yard was floored with heavy Live Oak planks. Occasionally the workers would liberate one for planemaking, carefully installing a substitute plank doctored up to match the original. 

This is so cool!   Sorry for the continued thread-hijack about oak.    My favorite coffin-plane I ever found was some sort of very beautiful oak.  Maybe holm oak or sheoak or ???    Very visible grain, but not a very open-textured grain.   

   

Chris

[Adnick]

Live Oaks are everywhere here in the TX Hill Country, they ar as hard or maybe even harder than Mesquite!

Sad thing is that Oak Wilt is killing them, they will die in a year or so of contracting it......

Beautiful box btw....

Andy