A couple boxes

[bobs64ford352]

I haven't done much in the shop for awhile, but my coworker requested a box for his daughters graduation, so I had to get my butt out there.  She was handed down a set of White House Christmas ornaments and is going to continue buying them every year, so he wanted a nice box to put them in. 

The first box is my practice box and is smaller (8.5"w x 6"h x 18"l)  It is a combination of purpleheart and cherry and is finished with danish oil.  I'm really happy with the results.  I really don't like the finishing process, but that stuff is really easy to apply and made the colors pop.  I was a little worried with the bare sanded color of the purpleheart not being purple enough, but it came out great.  This one will be going to my wife for our anniversary this month.





Box 2 is purple heart and cherry with a cool piece of curly maple for a top.  It was also finished in danish oil.  This one is 8"h x 9"w x 25"l. 







Mistakes were made, although I am learning to keep my mouth shut about what they are and I was able to recover nicely with a little extra glue and some added trim.  I used the incra box joint jig and definitely need more practice in making box joints especially the glue up.  With both I was going to make handmade handles to go on them, but decided to check out my stash of handles and found a couple sets I liked.  Unfortunately they were a bit dirty and had a little corrosion.  I lucked out with the local hardware store having the exact ones I wanted for the larger box and I found ones better than I was going to use for the smaller.  This was also my first time making the boxes solid and then cutting the lid off, for a better fit.  I was really happy with the results and will be doing it again in the future.  I was  a little nervous about the last cut causing problems when it separated, but I put painters tape over each cut I made, so it was still supported on the last cut.

Thanks for looking, Bob

[bobs64ford352]

What did I do wrong with posting the pictures? They showed up fine while making the post.

[bobs64ford352]

Figured it out, they were too large.


Edit to add: I'm horrible with pricing if you were to make the larger box and sell it, what would you ask for it? I found one on etsy that was similar, but 1/4 `the size and it was going for $185. He just about choked on his lunch when I told him. I want to give him a good deal, but I want to be fair to myself. I'm not looking to figure my time into it because it would be over a $500 box.

[jteneyck]

Very nice work, Bob.  I'm not a fan of purpleheart but I can admire your workmanship.   What would I charge to make that?  Not sure.  But I'm pretty sure the prices you see on Etsy are what fools pay, and there aren't enough of those to keep the rest of us working.  I see some boxes at the local outdoor art shows, too, with heavenly prices on them but I've never seen one actually sold while I was in that person's booth, or anyone carrying one under their arm.  Pricing is not easy, to be sure.  It's not about time and materials, unless you are a pro, and then your price had better exceed what those add up to or you won't be in business for long.  As an amateur your time is not really worth anything except to you, which is good because amateurs usually work so slowly (this one I know for sure) that no one could afford anything we made. 

Price is what someone is willing to pay for something.  Figuring out what that is is the hard part.  If your coworker could have bought what he wanted on Ebay, local craft show, Etsy, wherever, then the price is whatever he could find that appealed to him.  If he asked you to make something because he thought it would be cheaper, then you have a problem.  You should have discussed the price before you made the box.  If he asked you because he valued your work, and wanted something for his daughter made by a local craftsman then he should understand that your price is likely to exceed what he could have bought online, though perhaps not what's typically on Etsy.  In both cases, you should have established a price before building the box.  At this point, one or both of you is likely to end up disappointed.  Were I in this situation now (never have been, BTW) I would look at what prices are in those places I mentioned above, and with a critical eye to how my box compares to those, determine a price.  If my box was better in all regards to what I could find online I'd price it towards the top end of those.  If it's just so so in comparison, towards the bottom end.  Etc. 

Save yourself some grief in the future, set the pricing before cutting wood.  Better to get turned down than have hard feelings on anyone's part. 

John

I hope it turns OK.

[Billbo]

Nice work! 


Billbor

[Steve N]

Nice work! 

What he said

[mr_skittle]

Looks great.

I'm interested in how you made them. Could you give some more details? How did you do the maple liner on the biger box? Was it fit in piece by piece or did you make make two boxes and fit them together? What about material thinckness and how you did the raised panel lid? Sorry for being demanding but, I just finished a project and next was hoping to make some boxes just like yours. Maybe you can even share some of those mistakes to help the rest of us avoid them in the future.

[Wipedout]

Is it just me or do the pictures look strange. Did you resize them correctly. They appear out of proportion

[bobs64ford352]

WO -  I resized them in the post, it looked they resized as they should, but maybe it is how I cropped them before posting.  Actually, while typing this, I just had this up half windowed and looked at the pictures again and they did look "squished".  I went back to full screen and they were fine.

MR S. - These were completely off the cuff, except for the height, which I used the incra chart for figuring out how wide you need the board for a certain size of fingers and how many fingers are wanted.  The maple liner is a board I planed down and shaped with the raised panel cutter on my shaper.  The bottoms and tops sit in grooves and they were glued up as one whole piece.  The tops were cut off on the table saw after.  I used 1/2" cherry ply for the bottoms so I could solid glue them for increased rigidity, since I made the sides pretty thin.  The bigger one is roughly 5/16" thick for the PH and slightly thicker with the cherry inner line.  The smaller is closer to 3/8" for the PH and about the same thickness for the inner liner as the bigger one.  The maple lid is somewhere around 1/2" thick and the cherry lid is slightly less. 
Since this is a " safe space" I don't mind sharing the mistakes.  On the smaller box I was having a having difficulty doing stopped grooves and finally figured out to use my new router set up, with the larger box, with a spiral cutter and raising it up into the wood.  That mistake led to having to plug the holes that were created in the corners, of the smaller box, from the through groves.  The next mistake was that I didn't realize until I had already glued in a couple plugs that I was matching the face grain instead of the end grain, so the plugs are clearly visible.  When making the raised panel top I didn't use a miter gauge for doing the end grain side which led to the lines being slightly uneven.  Not being used to the shaper I didn't realize there were two ways to bolt down the fence.  I've always wondered why the miter slot was perpendicular to the fence, until I cracked the manual and saw the other way, which is why I didn't use the gauge.  The biggest mistake I made was thinning out the sides of the big box with the drum sander without realizing it was uneven,  This resulted in one of the grooves on the bottom almost showing and the wood flexed very easily there.  This is when I added the cherry trim.  Other than that it was basically not using enough glue with the finger joints and having to work glue into some of the joints and reclamp. 

JT - I agree with you on how pricing should be done.  Unfortunately, for me I'm an off the cuff woodworker and never know how much time, money and supplies will be needed until I'm done.  I really need to start being more careful about what I take on for projects and make sure they know that things can go real expensive real fast.  With this box I figure I have upwards of $100 in the wood, shop supplies/costs (wear and tear/elec.) and other materials.  The PH alone was about $60.  Although I did have a lot of shop time involved, I figure the shop time as time doing something I like, so the it isn't too important for me in figuring it into costs.

Thanks for all the comments, Bob

[EricU]

you'd be surprised at what boxes like that are going for at the big local "arts fest." Gaudy wood gets gaudy prices, but the workmanship isn't all that great. These guys would consider Etsy prices to be way too low. There is a competing show down the street from me at the same time that isn't as snooty, but I don't remember ever seeing any boxes. I know what you are saying about pricing though, I used to make retirement gifts for the high ranking guys at work.  I didn't have that much money in them, so I never charged even though they were willing to pay.

I had to go back and look for the plugs. The plugs probably would have been seamless if you had exposed end grain, but it looks fine to me. I have made boxes where I covered the ends of grooves with a finger from the long grain side, so long grain plugs don't bother me at all. I've also used end grain plugs that are pretty obvious. Nowadays, I usually go to ridiculous lengths to cover the ends of grooves, but if I was making something for sale where it was price sensitive, I might not.