Shreya built a teak watch box

A while back Shreya got in touch with me because she wanted to build a watch box as a gift for someone who loves watches.
A watch box is a cool project, it can be done in a couple of days and its satisfying. Very satisfying.

Maybe I should have taken pictures at all steps of the project, but when I'm helping someone build I tend to forget that I will have to document the process later. Plus I take terrible photographs (something I'm thinking I need to work on)

Step 1: As always the selection of wood. I took her to the local timber and ply guy and asked if we could go inside and select the pieces. To date no one has said no.

Step 2: We got back to the asylum and re examined the wood for knots and any difficult bits. And then she planed. Shreya took to planing like a duck takes to water. I guess the physical activity and the rewards really make planing a fun exercise.


Step  3: We assigned different pieces of the box to various sections of the timber. Now was the time to cut, glue up and plane the top and bottom, since these were wider than the timber we had procured.

Step 4: Glue up of the top and bottom. we would get to it the next day

Step 5: Cutting the sides to length. I did this with the circular saw. We could have done this with a hand saw but cutting straight is always a problem and then it gets frustrating to correct the cut.

Step 6: Day 2: Chopping the fingers: Shreya had decided that the finger joints would look best, and I tend to agree. Mitres might look good, but they are difficult to get right and the joint tends to exaggerate any screw ups in the 45 degree angles. Since then I've made a mitre shooting board which is an article for another time.

Step 7: Day 2: We unclamped and examined the jointed top and bottom. They were beautiful. Shreya gave them a touch up with the hand plane and they were set aside

Step 8: Day 2: We layered on a single coat of varnish and left for the day.

Step 9: During the following week, I sanded and then applied coats 2 and 3 to the box pieces.

Step 10: Shreya came in and glued up the box. We made the partitions of the same 3/4 inch wood, planed down to 1/4 inch. She was sweating like a pig by the end of that, but the smile said it all.

Finally etching the top and we were done.

A wooden hairpin: It is just challenging enough

"Yesterday a friend yanked out a hairpin and brutally attacked me ninja style... "

Ok, ok, nothing quite that dramatic. She did yank the pin out, shove in before my face and demand to know if I could guide her to making it. It was a simple 2 pronged rosewood hairpin and like all hairpins it was thin and delicate.
Rosewood is a great choice, its dark brown grain looks superb and it is dense enough to take the strain of holding back falling tresses.
I didn't have rose wood, and I wasn't about to break out the ebony, so good old burma it was. Burma teak if well chosen has the color to rival rosewood (over small pieces) and is probably as dense.
Without further ado, I pulled out a bit that I had lying about (waste from the Basic woodworking class last month) and proceeded to make a blank in under 2 minutes.

The construction is simple enough if you can cut straight. I'm not going to get into it but I wanted to see just how delicate these furniture hands could take me.
I also felt like fooling around with carving hence the strange top. You cant see it in the image but its tear drop shaped in 3 dimensions, with the edges being nearly sharp.

What do you think, delicate enough?